Real estate agents are already using ChatGPT to help write listing descriptions, while prop tech, short for property technology, is one of the hottest areas of development in the real estate world, from artificial intelligence-powered interior design generator ReImagine Home (which can be used by potential buyers to quickly envisage how a home could be remodeled) to Listing Showcase, a new immersive virtual viewing experience from Zillow (which has long used an algorithm to produce its Zestimate, its proprietary home-value estimator).
Now, as concerns mount that AI will replace jobs, the mega-selling Eklund | Gomes Team at Douglas Elliman — which did $4.6 billion in residential real estate deals in 2022 — is launching Maya, which it describes as an AI real estate expert that can provide tailored listing information drawn directly from property photos, continuously learn by active engagement with users, and act as a guide to everything from neighborhoods to the basics of real estate.
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In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Eklund and Gomes joke that they are Maya’s two dads as they give a demonstration of the interface, which is built on ChatGPT. With question prompts from the duo, Maya looks up and spotlights listings for condos in TriBeCa under $4 million in a well-laid-out fashion; describes the difference between a co-op and condo; correctly answers a question about the biggest residential real estate sale of all time (hedge-funder Ken Griffin’s $238 million NYC penthouse purchase in 2019); and details what some of the most popular celebrity vacation home markets are. But Maya did struggle when asked what the biggest celebrity sale of 2023 was, unable to share that Beyoncé and Jay-Z spent $200 million on a spread in Malibu earlier this year.
To help Maya learn and constantly improve, the interface allows users to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to answers. “So anything you affirm with a thumbs up gets stronger,” says Eklund, the former star of Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing.
Eklund describes the AI avatar — which was developed over the past 18 months — in anthropomorphic fashion: “Maya works around the clock, never sleeps, is helpful and friendly, makes real estate buying and selling fun, never forgets anything, and at the same time learns every time anyone is talking to her.”
Maya isn’t the first AI-powered real estate expert in the market. In June, the company DwellWell launched Dwelly AI, which it describes as “conversational AI designed specifically for homebuyers.”
But unlike Dwelly, Maya has a face and will eventually have a voice, as well. Version 2.0 of Maya (expected to launch early next year) “is actually going to be animated,” says Gomes. “So when you talk to her, she’ll be moving or winking her eye.”
Maya will live on a new, expanded Eklund | Gomes website and is open to any users, who must register their email address to access the interface. The avatar — which has been trained on and has scanned “thousands of articles about real estate,” says Eklund — will also collect “real-time data during client interactions, enabling EG to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences,” according to its creators.
Explains Eklund, “On the back end of this, she’ll remember everything you ever spoke to her about and alert one of our agents that you are talking to her about maybe one of our listings. And she can also send you a personalized message tomorrow morning that it was nice to speak to you and recap the conversation and maybe send you more properties within your range. It’s a really good lead generator for our firm.” Adds Gomes, “She’s going to hand you off to one of our agents; she’ll connect you to the right agent and then that agent will take it from there. So she’s assisting us in the process. She’s very often going to be the first point of contact that one meets. And when we speak to you, we’ll have some context and understanding of what your parameters are and the things you like.”
The Eklund | Gomes Team — which has around 90 agents in five states (New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas and California) — is also launching the sale of jets and yachts as part of its newly launched website. “These masters of the universe, Fortune 500 big whales [who] we’ve been working with for decades, they often come to us asking about yachts and jets. We provide the real estate, but we’ve never been able to offer that until now, through our partners,” says Eklund.
Eklund and Gomes, along with the team’s CEO Julia Spillman-Gover, invested in the creation of Maya, which was developed with Purlin, a company that uses images and AI to personalize home-buying. Purlin’s investors include New Valley Ventures, a prop-tech investment arm of Douglas Elliman brokerage. (Eklund is also the co-founder of REAL, a social app for real estate.)
“Elliman is our brokerage, and we’re sort of a company within a company,” says Eklund, noting that the team’s new website “is our new brand and it has an artificial-intelligence engine in it. It’s really built around Maya. We really think about the way that buying and selling is changing, and we want to make it more personal and make it more fun. I always say real estate is a very stressful experience; it’s arguably the biggest financial decision we make in a lifetime. And I feel Maya helps with that a little bit — to break the ice, if you will.”
Adds Gomes, “The industry is changing ever so quickly under our feet, and we want to be ahead of the curve.”
