Tired of hearing about artificial intelligence? Too bad.
Keller Williams Head of Industry and Learning Jason Abrams said AI is at the center of the Texas-based franchisor’s four-day Mega Agent Camp, which will give nearly four thousand attendees the keys to leveraging large language models and AI-powered search engine results to stay at the top of their network — and Google’s — list. Mastering these two things, Abrams said, will determine which agents will be successful as real estate moves ever closer to a fully digitized future.
Jason Abrams
“Today, [agents] have to ask, ‘How do I become more known and trusted with my database, and how do I become more known and trusted to the search engines? And how do I become more known and trusted by the AI engines?’” he said. “You have to win in all three of those categories.”
Although tech is at the center, Abrams said the real magic happens when agents can successfully take the online, offline.
“I believe that it comes down to a hybrid approach, meaning I’m going to have this incredible digital experience and now I have to have a physical experience,” he said. “A great example of that right now, one of the coolest new events that I’m seeing for agents is called Flowers and Photos. What they’re doing is they’re inviting their databases to a park. They have long tables, and a florist fills the tables with all kinds of flowers. The clients build these incredible flower bouquets, and when they’re done with that, they take a family portrait, all brought to you by your local real estate agent.”
“When they splash those photos all over social media, everybody gets to share in that joy. Those are the photos that show up on the holiday cards,” he added. “And three months later, when someone needs help with a transaction, who do they think of? You.”
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What are you most excited about for this year’s Mega Agent Camp? What theme(s) will agents see throughout the sessions?
We always start thinking about camp the same way, which is the foundation of the entire industry: leads, listings and leverage. So we put the three L’s on the board, and then we always say, ‘Okay, that’s the timeless. Now, what’s happening within each of those that’s timely?’ We’re going to cover them all, but I think this year, there’s an incredible focus on artificial intelligence.
What is it? How does a real estate agent use it? Does the agent use it today? Then we’ll focus on social media and answer, ‘How do I get my message out there in the influencer platform era?’ We’ll cover those two things and then all of the basics around the other things you need to do every day to transact.
I like that — taking the timeless and making it timely. As you said, artificial intelligence is at the top of everyone’s minds. It was a recurring topic at Inman Connect San Diego last week, and AI, for all of its benefits and risks, will become a bigger part of our world. How do you plan to approach AI at Mega Agent Camp? What do agents still need to know?
This is something we’re really passionate about. And I think, if I’m not mistaken, didn’t [Inman founder] Brad [Inman] wake up 48 hours before his keynote, completely rewrite it and talk about AI? Brad is the voice in all of our heads so often, and so when he did that, it was such a confirmation for us.
We are thinking about AI in a couple of different ways. Number one, we’re bringing in industry experts, as well as those outside the industry. We’re going to hear directly from the lead architect for Google Gemini, and I couldn’t be more excited to have her on stage with us as she talks about what AI is and how Google thinks about it.
Then we’re going to have Marcus Sheridan, who is an AI expert, on how to build a brand that’s known and trusted, not just by the consumer, but also by the AI large language models that are directing people on who to talk to.
Then we’re also releasing the AI playbook, large language model edition, which we’re wildly excited about. Inside of that, you have 20 of the best prompts ever written for real estate agents to help them do all of the things they need to do, from doing their 36 touch programs all the way through practicing their negotiation and conversation skills. And we’re going to release all that from the stage.
That sounds exciting, especially the part about the prompts. I don’t use ChatGPT often, but I know that users often struggle to craft effective prompts. Could you give a little bit of insight into some of those prompts, like how you developed them, and figured out that they are the best way for agents to extract the most out of these models?
Absolutely. So the way that we thought about it was like a tandem bicycle with the real estate agent sitting in the front seat and deciding where they’re going, when to brake, when to speed up, when to turn and when to stop. The more you know where you’re headed, the easier it is for AI, which is sitting on the seat behind you, to help you get there faster. That’s the easiest way to explain it.
For real estate agents, AI breaks into two buckets. One side is, I want to get stuff done: Help me edit, help me make videos, help me negotiate. Help me do a [comparative market analysis], or help me write comments for a listing.
The other bucket is to generate leads. How do I show up first when someone says to their AI, ‘Who’s the best real estate agent in this city?’ When I look around the industry right now, I hear almost everybody exclusively talking about how to get things done. We’re going to make sure to educate the real estate agents on how to generate leads using an AI generative engine optimization. That’s really where it’s all headed.
Your second point reminds me of what’s happening in the media space. Plenty of publications are figuring out the rules, now that AI is involved in search engine optimization (SEO) on a greater scale.
We have the same challenge. And here’s what’s so interesting. Marian, you and I, our companies have both been doing the same thing. See, real estate agents have been waking up for the last 100 years and asking the question, ‘How do I become more known and trusted with my database?’ But today they have to ask, How do I become more known and trusted with my database, and how do I become more known and trusted to the search engines? And how do I become more known and trusted by the AI engines?’ You have to win in all three of those categories.
Circling back to the prompt part of the equation, how are you teaching agents to critically examine and challenge the answers they’re getting from ChatGPT or another large language model? Sometimes people take the answers they get at face value, not realizing they could be making decisions based on an inaccurate response.
We’ve thought about that. And in our AI playbook, we have the seven hacks to take your prompting skills to the next level, and one of them is really recognizing the fact that AI is still imperfect. Remember, it’s not thinking. It’s just looking for patterns.
How can you use AI to actually help check its own work — asking it to argue the opposite view or asking it to critique its answer. You can even use some of those follow-up prompts after you ask it to do something, to bring you much closer to a better product.
But at the end of the day, what you just said is so sage. That’s why we don’t believe that AI will ever replace real estate agents. But what we do believe, though, is that real estate agents who adopt AI may very well outproduce real estate agents who don’t.
One more point on AI. A couple of years ago, there was considerable fear surrounding artificial intelligence. I think a lot of people were leaning on what they saw in science fiction movies and thinking about these models becoming our overlords. Do you think that level of fear still exists, or has it evened out as more people have become familiar with how these models work?
I always think there’s going to be a healthy amount of fear anytime you see this kind of rapid change in the way that people communicate, and the way that people live, and the way that people think. But in the book, we lay out the seven myths around AI, and one of them is, ‘I have time.’
The reason I think it’s germane to your question is that when we’re afraid of something, sometimes we’re slower to start adopting or using it. But here’s the truth: You really don’t.
Your clients and your future clients are already using it. Quite simply, they expect you to be there. So the short answer to your question, Marian, whether you’re afraid or not, shouldn’t be the question. It should be, ‘How do I overcome my fear?’ That’s the question to ask.
Email Marian McPherson