Marketproof Bets on Data With AI Assistant

Marketproof is joining the ranks of residential real estate firms rolling out their own ChatGPT plugins.

The data analytics company this week launched an AI Assistant to generate listing descriptions for Marketproof Pro users. The tool suggests features and amenities based on the platform’s data on the property and allows users to input their own. They can also set the tone — professional, neutral or casual — and length of the description.

“We’ve been using AI under the hood for a long time,” Marketproof president and CEO Kael Goodman said. “This new wave of language models enables us to bring AI closer to both real estate professionals and consumers.”

The listing description is the first in a series of artificial intelligence-powered features Marketproof plans to incorporate into its AI Assistant. Also on deck are tools to help users price properties, assemble reports, virtually stage properties and create floor plans.

The announcement comes after Zillow and Redfin rolled out their own ChatGPT plugins aimed at bettering the online homebuyer experience and adds to residential real estate’s embrace of the rapidly evolving tools.

Artificial intelligence firm OpenAI launched ChatGPT late last year. The bot reportedly shot to 1 million users in its first week and had already shown promise for some brokers who experimented with putting it to work, turning to it for advice on how to negotiate a deal or for writing letters, listing descriptions and video scripts.

But ChatGPT has its drawbacks, including limited knowledge of recent events, language and legal context critical to real estate.

Marketproof is betting its extensive data inventory will set its AI Assistant apart from the crowd, supplementing the information available through ChatGPT.

“Without specific real estate information, what’s delivered [on ChatGPT] can be prone to errors,” Goodman said. “What’s needed to get quality output is to combine targeted real estate data and AI models. That’s what Marketproof is doing.”

Artificial intelligence tools learn through specific data, and for ChatGPT, that data doesn’t include information beyond 2021. It’s also delivered its fair share of inaccuracies depending on the prompts provided.

But adding data to ChatGPT’s function can help eliminate this gap and allow tools to be adapted for more specific purposes.

“It’s not about the chatbot,” real estate strategist Mike DelPrete said in a video posted to his YouTube channel last week. “It’s about the power the chatbot, or ChatGPT, can have on top of a really big dataset.”

Zillow and Redfin’s ChatGPT plugins fall under what DelPrete called in the video “phase one, proof of concept.” Their tools essentially function as enhanced search engines, allowing ChatGPT Premium users to find relevant listings by describing homes in a conversational way.

The Real Brokerage announced earlier this month it plans to launch its own AI assistant tool, with beta testing to begin later this quarter. The tool, called Leo, is backed by ChatGPT and data from the brokerage’s transaction management platform. Agents can use it as a virtual personal assistant to answer questions about their commissions, revenue share, transactions and more.

Compass executives indicated In a first quarter earnings call the brokerage was planning to incorporate AI tools similar to ChatGPT into its existing platform to help agents with listing descriptions, marketing and client outreach.

Rory Golod, Compass’ president of growth recently told The Real Deal the company has “been using AI internally for almost two years now.”

But the next step for plugins like what Zillow and Redfin have debuted, according to DelPrete, is to combine proprietary data with ChatGPT to create more sophisticated tools — something he predicted wouldn’t happen for a few more months.

“[Marketproof] has already done what Mike DelPrete thinks is coming in the future,” Goodman said.