2023 Was About Utilizing AI. 2024 Is About Utilizing It Higher: Mosaik CEO
The decision is in — the previous manner of doing enterprise is over. Be part of us at Inman Connect New York Jan. 23-25, when collectively we’ll conquer at this time’s market challenges and put together for tomorrow’s alternatives. Defy the market and guess massive in your future.
OpenAI dominated the tech sphere in 2024, as its free artificial-intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT captured the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of customers who tried to make use of the device for every little thing from creating weekly grocery procuring lists to crafting full-fledged enterprise plans.
The true property business shortly jumped on the pattern, as brokers and brokers used it to write down itemizing descriptions, social media posts and take over among the mundane duties related to day by day enterprise. Nevertheless, the constraints and risks of AI-powered instruments began to turn into extra obvious — two NYC legal professionals had been sanctioned for submitting a short with six fictitious instances created by ChatGPT, a number of nationwide information organizations had been lambasted for utilizing AI writers, and writers’ and actors’ guilds fought to have their work and likenesses protected against it.
Sheila Reddy
Mosaik founder and CEO Sheila Reddy has been at floor zero of AI’s evolution over the previous yr, as her firm’s AI-backed residence search and agent productiveness platform won rave reviews from customers and tech specialists alike.
Reddy mentioned AI introduced some “pure worry” about job safety, deepfakes, propaganda and the like in 2023; nonetheless, she believes these hiccups have ready the business to make use of AI extra effectively within the new yr.
“There’s an openness to utilizing AI. It’s a really highly effective device that can be utilized to supercharge productiveness and enhance operations,” she mentioned. “We’ve moved previous the preliminary ambiguity and notion points, and 2024 goes to be an enormous yr of extra adoption and other people utilizing it of their companies as a productiveness enhancer.”
Listed below are Reddy’s ideas on AI, the significance of avoiding “the shiny object syndrome” and what’s forward for Mosaik in 2024.
Inman: What are you most enthusiastic about for ICNY 2024?
I’m excited [about] the breadth and depth of the audio system, throughout the entire totally different subjects; 2023 was a very volatile year in some ways for the business, and to a point, the world at giant. And 2024 is presenting itself with quite a lot of unknowns on the place issues are going to go — from an business perspective, a expertise perspective, a regulatory perspective [and] all of those various things.
Simply the chance to listen to the opinions, ideas and motion plans of among the prime leaders and thought leaders within the business is one thing I’m trying ahead to. Hopefully, I’ll come again with some actionable takeaways that we will implement at Mosaik for our prospects.
We had the prospect to speak briefly over electronic mail earlier than at this time’s interview, and also you talked about the problem of constructing choices that set your prospects up for long-term and short-term success all through such an unpredictable yr. What would possibly that balancing act seem like in 2024 versus 2023?
For Mosaik, our normal philosophy from the day we began, and what we are going to proceed to dwell and abide by in 2024, is simply being conscious of the wants of our prospects who’re brokers and groups and brokerages. So, we’re not making modifications to our general technique, as a result of it’s all the time been to only be as conscious of wants as potential, and we’re in a superb place to do this.
In 2023, we did shift consideration and assets in direction of these sorts of tactical fast wins that we might help brokers form of — I don’t need to say “keep afloat” — however assist brokers fight these totally different points and market volatility that had been developing.
That may proceed to catch the attention of us in 2024. Simply how will we stability these tactical alternatives to assist brokers generate fast wins whereas concurrently increase the technological foundations they want for long-term success? For those who’re managing these two, I believe you’ll all the time achieve success.
Talking of technological foundations, lots of people are nonetheless determining how synthetic intelligence matches into their future. It appears there’s equal worry and curiosity in terms of ChatGPT, DALL-E, and all these different instruments that got here to the forefront in 2023. What are your ideas on AI and the way actual property professionals can higher leverage it this yr?
AI began to interrupt into the scene and rise within the public’s consciousness; you’re proper, there was some pure worry. The primary concern was, what does AI mean for job security? What does this imply for me as knowledgeable? There’s in all probability nonetheless a wholesome quantity of worry when it comes to deepfakes, how AI can drive propaganda or issues like that.
However I believe for essentially the most half, everyone that we work together with within the business at giant has warmed as much as AI. They’ve seen the potential of it and many of the brokers and business professionals that we’ve a possibility to work together with on a day-to-day foundation are keen to include it into their enterprise.
We’re nonetheless within the early levels of utilizing AI, and I primarily see professionals utilizing instruments like ChatGPT to craft itemizing descriptions, social media posts, and deal with a few of these different mundane, but time-intensive duties. What’s the following step in leveraging AI?
Yeah, that’s a terrific query. I believe the following step, in some methods, modifications by the day simply due to how shortly AI is progressing. Day by day there are new use instances and new instruments, so my reply at this time may be very totally different than my reply 90 days from now.
However the massive theme goes to be find out how to use AI successfully.
For instance, utilizing ChatGPT to write down itemizing descriptions is a good use of that device. It saves time, however at a sure level, among the issues ChatGPT creates form of begin to sound the identical, proper? Itemizing descriptions can turn into a aggressive benefit in case you can write distinctive ones, so will of us be capable of harness ChatGPT and immediate it in ways in which may give them higher outcomes? Or will they form of create a greater symbiotic relationship by refining these ChatGPT outputs additional?
You probably have a terrific copywriter on the crew or in case you’re nice at writing and your itemizing descriptions are what set you aside available in the market, switching to ChatGPT would possibly prevent time, however it isn’t essentially going to maneuver the needle in your small business in case you’re shedding a aggressive benefit. So I believe it’s all about your small business strengths and weaknesses and determining what gaps AI can plug in.
The opposite piece that we’re going to begin to see extra of is the usage of proprietary information to energy AI. Brokerages, expertise firms or entities throughout the business have entry to proprietary data, whether or not that’s transaction tendencies, market tendencies or consumer info. They’ve these swimming pools of information that they haven’t been capable of successfully sift by way of and switch into significant info.
We’re going to see extra firms begin to leverage these massive AI instruments and fashions to derive insights and worth from these proprietary datasets, which is able to, in flip, give brokers and business professionals much more accessible and significant info.
That may be a terrific use for AI. However whenever you talked about proprietary information, my thoughts instantly jumped to information security and among the ways in which AI can and is being abused. As a proptech chief, how do you concentrate on the dangers and challenges that include AI and different rising tech? What’s your position in serving to customers navigate a quickly evolving panorama?
We’re nonetheless within the early levels of seeing what regulatory processes round this seem like, and we’re nonetheless within the early levels of seeing what even among the true energy of this may be. And sadly, quite a lot of the time, regulation or simply even finest practices or client consciousness towards potential predatory practices doesn’t even come to gentle till issues occur. You don’t know what you don’t know.
However when it comes to what customers can do at this time, I believe the secret is being cognizant of the place you’re placing your info, and a part of this goes again to my earlier level about utilizing AI effectively. I believe all of us, you realize, typically get into like shiny object syndrome the place we see a brand new device and we put a bunch of information in it after which we overlook about it and we don’t know what occurs to it after that.
It’s about being very intentional in the usage of expertise — what is that this device going to do for me? Is it value me placing my info into it? If the reply to that [second] query is “sure,” taking a while to perform a little little bit of diligence round their privateness coverage [and] understanding how are they monetizing it’s key. If it’s free for me to make use of, meaning they’re producing their income some other place. That might imply that the information is being bought or utilized in different methods.
Particularly on this early stage, the place the dangers stay to be totally seen, I believe it’s definitely worth the funding of taking a couple of minutes to form of look by way of the privateness coverage [and] asking these questions of your vendor, in case you’re signing a contract with them. I believe these are all steps that people can take at this time to guard their information as a lot as they’ll.
A whole lot of brokers, brokers and different actual property professionals are streamlining their budgets this yr, so your reminder about avoiding the ‘shiny object syndrome’ is true on time. In relation to Mosaik, what are your plans within the upcoming yr to maintain it a vital device for present and potential prospects? The place would you prefer to see the corporate 12 months from now?
We’ve obtained quite a lot of issues within the works, and we’ll be placing out a number of new key options to constantly enhance the platform and constantly incorporate our buyer suggestions into it. AI is an enormous a part of our technique for 2024. We’ve already been utilizing it and incorporating it in some ways however with each passing month, AI fashions get higher and extra environment friendly and there’s much more we will do. So we’ll be persevering with to leverage AI to primarily put instruments in brokers’ fingers that can assist them improve their productiveness and create a greater expertise for his or her purchasers.
We formally launched in early 2023, and the remainder of that yr was about stepping into new geographic markets and understanding totally different areas. What’s so distinctive about the true property business is that, though there are these macro tendencies and themes, the enterprise is native and that’s one thing that has, in some ways, restricted tech’s skill to serve brokers — as a result of one dimension doesn’t match all.
Whereas we deliver quite a lot of standardization and effectivity by way of our platform, we’ve invested quite a lot of time and assets over the course of 2023 in actually studying these particular person markets and their nuances, so we will make our options, our choices, the information and experiences that folks can entry significant on the native degree. We’re excited in 2024 to deliver extra of that worth to of us.
