One by one, real estate companies are making the same “forward-thinking” move and announcing a pivot to AI. This often means cutting human staff and calling it “efficiency” or “future-proofing.”
At a recent industry all-hands, one staff member asked bluntly, “Who is left to actually support agents? We’re drowning.”
Another admitted, “We’re told to embrace AI, but what we’re really doing is building the tools that will replace us.”
It’s a sentiment popping up across the real estate landscape.
3 approaches to AI adoption
Right now, there seem to be three camps:
- The Holdouts: Those who reject AI outright, believing they are preserving integrity, protecting the planet or simply not very tech savvy.
- The Integrators: Those who see AI as a tool, not a takeover. They use it for research, brainstorming, building efficient systems and lightening the workload, but not replacing the human touch.
- The Terminators: Those who go all in on automation, stripping away human connection in the name of savings, slashing staff and making the survivors train the AI that will replace them.
The problem is not AI. The problem is the rush to terminate the human touch in the name of saving money or being the first to adopt it, where automation comes at the expense of culture, service and credibility. This kind of adoption leads to decreased customer satisfaction and, potentially, legal and ethical messes.
The cost of ‘efficiency’
In real estate, trust, time and experience are currency. Yet we are watching companies erode that trust in lightning speed by eliminating the human experience in their organizations. As one insider put it, “We’ve lost the people who know how to fix problems before they happen. Now everything is reactive.”
They push AI adoption without strategy, training or even the systems to support it. They slash their most experienced managers and highest-paid staff — often the very people who have carried the company for years. Then they hand the survivors a new to-do list: learn AI, innovate and cover all the work of those they just lost.
One employee summed it up: “We’re drowning in tasks no one trained us for. AI was supposed to help us, not bury us.”
Support roles vanish under the banner of “efficiency,” while leadership seems convinced that agents are asking for full automation. They aren’t. And the proof is in the exits: Staff leaving for other companies, sometimes for less pay, just for a better culture.
It’s only a matter of time before agents realize the tech wasn’t built to help them. It was built to support the bottom line. Some companies have even rolled out AI “twins” of their brokers and leaders.
Aside from the fact that these bots often go rogue in their responses, agents don’t want a pre-programmed script.
“Agents don’t want to talk to a bot. They want someone who’s been there, done that and actually gets it,” said one frustrated voice.
So, who is this “convenience” really for? The agent or the company?
The point of no return
Once you strip out humanity, there is no coming back from that brink. As one industry veteran bluntly put it, “The culture is slipping away one layoff at a time.”
The choice isn’t whether AI will be part of real estate. It’s whether we’ll use it to elevate the humans who power this industry or erase them in the name of progress.
Innovation is in our DNA at Inman — that’s why we’re excited about August’s Technology and Innovation Month. We’ll kick it off by celebrating the companies and individuals pushing the industry forward with an expanded slate of Inman Innovator Awards at Inman Connect San Diego. Then, we’ll continue to celebrate the brightest minds in real estate all month long.
Holly Brink is the co-founder, COO and managing broker of My Real Estate Company in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Illinois. Connect with her on Instagram or LinkedIn.
