The AI 5 x 5: 5 Things That AI Can Do to Help You Grow Your Business, And 5 Things You Should Stop Doing Immediately.

We’ve got a long one this month for my tech article and I think it’s one you’ll find tremendous value from and will come back to again and again. BUCKLE UP.

If you are like many people out there in real estate and in business in general, you may feel like you are behind when it comes to AI. And I hate to be direct about this, but the reality is, you are. And for those out there who believe that they are ahead of the curve, I hate to tell you, you aren’t. Not even the companies making the models themselves are objectively ahead right now, and that’s because it’s an insane race for which no one really knows where the finish line is.

All that we do know for sure is that it is changing the world around us on a daily basis, even slipping into places we never asked for it to be (IG added in chat AI summaries for your DMs. Why?) and will certainly disrupt almost any business.

As has been my stump speech lately, technology is only here to help you solve 2 problems in real estate:

1) It is here to help you get more appointments.

2) It is here to simplify your administrative processes.

That’s it guys. And when you think about it like that, then you get to put your systems, your technology, your AI on notice. Because if any of those can’t solve these 2 problems, something is missing or broken. There are 1001 and one way you can run your real estate business, you can build a career, and most of them don’t have a magic button. AI is powerful in its strength zones, but it comes with a high degree of misinformation over capabilities that you soon discover when you go to implement.

Start doing these 5 things today:

1. Start making chats without “memory”

Regardless of the AI model you are working with, I have found best results if you limit the memory of a chat to that chat. What that means is that when you start a new chat it is pulling data from other conversations, changing the way it interacts with you in order to tell you what you want to hear, not what might be best. Claude does this by default, but ChatGPT does not. This means that anytime you create a new chat it is pulling data from all chats, and while that might sound great, in practice you often times will have conflicting information that will start to give you uneven results.

2. Give AI the data you wish to analyze, pull from sources you know to be truth

While tools like Gemini’s Deep Research is amazing for crawling the web, cross referencing, and building an abstract/brief, when you are dealing with specialized data, like MLS data or comps, you should provide the data for best results. If I ask a model how many people are using say Smart Plans in Command, it will give me an answer, but where would it pull this data from? This data does not exist where it can pull it, and yet, it wants to impress me so it will give me a result. Any answer is likely fabricated, a guess at best.

3. Explore how you can use Claude Co-work to simplify your workflow

This is something I have just started diving deeper into, but a new feature to Claude known as Co-work allows you to run the model locally on your computer and give it access to specific folders and applications to execute a set of tasks. For example, I have it taking a report I get from KWRI, break it apart by market center, and then take the results and put them in different folders on my computer that are synced to the cloud that I share to specific roles. It could do something similar and pull hot sheets from the MLS, do analysis on what the best deals are, and give you detailed reports from that data you could turn into social media content or send out to your buyers and sellers. Look into it.

4. Use it to research and analyze what people are talking about in the market

While there is no perfect system for gathering all the data, being that most consumers talk about their challenges locally or in real estate in general on Facebook groups and the comment sections on social media posts (both of which are blocked from ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude crawling on their own), make it a practice to capture that data from time to time, copy and paste, and put it into a starred or favorited chat. For my writing career I do this 3-5 times a week. What it helps me determine is what matters to the public in a certain niche. Once I know what people are talking about and why, it becomes FAR easy to create social content, blog posts, etc that speak to that audience directly.

Pro tip: Screenshots from posts can also be added to the models for them to extract the data. It’s not the most efficient for large blocks of content, but if it’s the only way you can get to it, this can be big.

5. Build an avatar of your target audience

Piggy backing on #4, when you have an idea of what your target market is talking about, and you add the layer of your ideal client within that market (your avatar), creating social content becomes a breeze. There is no way you can capture all the attention online, or even in your market, with how the social media algorithms are designed or in how AI search works. But you can ABSOLUTELY create content that works for say: “A first time home buyer in the Coweta County area of Alabama who don’t yet have kids, own 2 dogs, and enjoy doing outdoor things. Who goes to local events and on the weekends likes to try new places to eat and wants a fun brewery to go hang out with friends at that’s nearby.” This is an AVATAR. An image of what your ideal client, whoever they are, might look like. Get to know them as best you can. Speak the way they speak. Show up the way they best want to be communicated with. These things will help you slice through the noise like a samurai sword through tissue paper (bad analogy, excuse me).

Stop doing these 5 things today:

1. Stop blindly believing that results AI gives you are better than your own instincts

You wouldn’t ask for advice from a college intern about your health who got its world view from reading X, Reddit, random Facebook posts, or blogs would you? Then why do we believe AI will somehow know what is best or what is true? The reality is it does not have instincts. It recognizes only patterns. And the results it gives you are based on the most likely outcomes. If the result doesn’t match your instincts, chances are you are probably right. Arguing with the model to bend it to your way of thinking only muddies the experiment. Remember, it is designed to tell you want you want to hear in the end.

2. Stop creating a new chat every time you come back to the same subject or topic

This is a simple one, but you can star or favorite chats. Name them after the task or job you are wanting to create or execute. Return to those instead of starting new ones every time, especially in Claude. It keeps your results far more consistent.

3. Stop using AI to generate creative content you plan on selling

This is less of an issue in real estate, but in general it is worth noting that you cannot copyright anything that is known to be AI generated. If you are building creative content, writing books, making art to sell, do it the old-fashioned way. Not only will the end result be better, but the journey is also a big part of the destination. Trust someone who’s written a whole stack of novels in this. I promise you it’s worth it. Do it the hard way.

4. Stop seeking human-like validation from a machine

More than once (dozens of times in fact), I have had individuals tell me that they go to their AI of choice to make them feel better about themselves. To give them a compliment when they are having a bad day. To be their therapist when life is falling apart. I know this is less of a business answer, but this topic does matter. It is important to keep in mind that these are merely pattern recognition models. As far as we are aware they are not sentient nor do they have real lived experience. For this kind of need, lean into your human experiences. Humans are messy, and difficult, and require compromise to remain in their good graces, and you know what? That’s life. It’s how we are wired. This is not something that should be easy. If you feel this pull, know you are not alone and take a break. Remove it from your phone. Go see an old friend. Spend time with a loved one. Volunteer. The world needs you living in it.

5. Stop worrying over chasing every new AI release

You are just one person, and your #1 job in real estate to remain in this business and do well in this business is to connect with buyers and sellers who need the best of the best to represent them with their most important financial asset. Be the best at that. Use whatever means you need in order to connect with others, to stay in front of others, but stop chasing shiny objects. Learn to embrace the journey. The best things do not come easy or free. Real estate is a relationship business.

Now go out there and be the best you can. Focus on what works. Don’t stress the rest.

~Patrick