Tuesdays are 3 AI updates, one hot take, one action. Fridays are 1 practical real estate agent workflow.
I asked this question to ChatGPT this week to see if I was in the list. I wasn’t.
I then asked a follow-up about marketing specifically and I was included in the list. I’ve been doing this for years and I hear that people find out about me through AI but the proof is clear - you need to think broadly about how people are searching for subjects you want to appear in.
No matter how you want to show up, buyers are shifting search behavior faster than anything I saw in ten years at Compass. Here are some recent news updates that tell the story…
1. Your buyers are opening an AI before they open Zillow. In early 2025, about 17% of buyers used AI as their main way to research before they ever called an agent. Now it is 67%, from a study of 8.2 million real estate searches (the NAR number is lower, closer to 20%, and Google still runs most searches). I haven’t seen a client habit change this fast since the portals showed up.
2. ChatGPT still leads, but it lost its monopoly this year. It dropped below half of all assistant traffic for the first time, while Google's Gemini roughly quintupled to about 28%, helped along by a billion-dollar deal to run the future of Siri. That number’s important but make sure to pay attention to who is walking in behind the buyers. Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com and Homes.com all launched ways to search listings or book tours without leaving their assistant. The portals will continue to compete with you directly more and more.
3. Most AI answers never send a click to anybody, and only about 8 agents in 100 show up in them at all. When Google drops an AI overview on top of a search, 83% of those searches end with no click to any website, and inside AI Mode it is 93%. So the buyer gets their answer and a name to call, and never lands on anyone's site. That same study found only 8.4% of agents show up in these answers, and the top 1% grab 47% of the mentions. Ranking a web page and waiting for the click was the old game. Getting named inside the answer is the new one. Make this a part of your 2026 marketing plan.
HOT TAKE
If I were starting over today, I would get AI to know who I am before I spent another dollar boosting Instagram posts. Being the answer is going to beat being the ad, and that ground has a lot of open opportunity for agents still. Most of your competition is still arguing about whether AI writes a good listing description, and it gives you the opportunity to lead here. Start the process today by adding a list of todos every month that help positively impact your coverage on chatGPT & Gemini.
1 THING TO TRY
Take 1 hour this week to fill out your Google Business Profile. If you don’t have one, make one. If you do When someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini for a good agent in a town, Google's business data has a lot of influence. Most agents have a bare profile with a headshot and not much else. Claim yours at google.com/business, then do the part everyone skips: in the description and services, name the actual neighborhoods you work and the price ranges you know best, in plain sentences a real person would say out loud. Add three or four questions buyers actually ask you, and answer them in the Q&A. That will give you a head start and this weekend I'll give you another tip to go further with your own website.
TOP AGENT CLAUDE WORKSHOP IN CA
Just a few weeks left to register for my in-person, full-day Claude Cowork workshop at the Compass SoCal Luxury Summit in Orange County on August 12th. It's the hands-on version of everything I write about here, built for agents working at the top of their market. No need to attend the entire Summit (although I recommend it) - you can sign up for only my session if you want. Send me a message if you’re interested and I’ll send you an exclusive discount code.
-Matt
