Most of us have had the experience of attending a real estate conference, sitting in a crowded room, and the panel starts talking about AI.
Everyone agrees that it’s important. There are also casual references to the law, vague nods to compliance risks, and, of course, reminders that “this is the future.” But 30 minutes later, you emerge still unsure of what exactly you should do to protect your brand, data, and privacy compliance requirements in the world of AI.
Meanwhile, agents are already using AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude every day to write product descriptions, draft emails, and get help summarizing transaction details. But where does that information go? When an agent copies and pastes a customer’s personal information, transaction details, market insights, etc. into an AI, that prompt doesn’t just disappear. It’s handled somewhere, often outside the guardrails of the brokerage firm, with policies, or worse, no policies, and most brokers have no visibility or control over it.
Most of us have never sat down and defined a formal AI strategy for our teams or staff. Still, AI has come to influence nearly every part of how teams operate. The real question is no longer whether AI is being used, but whether it is being used responsibly.
What responsible AI means in real estate
You wouldn’t give your agents tools and expect them to figure out compliance on their own, right? Of course not. Choose a system that already has guardrails built in.
Email platforms know what they can and cannot send. Transactional tools process data in the right way. These systems take the burden off the shoulders of brokers, eliminating the need to manually check standards and regulations 24/7.
Responsible AI works similarly.
Instead of an agent guessing what is safe to paste into a tool or deciding whether an output is over the line, the rules are built into the system itself. It’s clear what data AI can use, where that data goes, and what it can generate. Fair housing standards, brand compliance, and industry data requirements are all considered upfront.
The risks of leaving AI “out there”
Most general-purpose AI tools are not built for regulated industries like real estate. However, they are always used behind the scenes, often without any deployment planning or actual monitoring.
These tools don’t understand intermediary structures, compliance boundaries, or what happens if you get the language wrong. The responsibility therefore shifts to the agent.
They decide what is safe to paste and interpret the output. Either they discover compliance issues on the spot, or they don’t.
It doesn’t reduce risk. it spreads it. So what could be the solution? Rely on your technology partner.
Ask how AI is designed within the platform. Ask how your data will be handled, stored, restricted and protected. Ask whether AI follows the same guardrails as other intermediary systems. Not all AIs are the same, so brokers should expect more than just general guarantees.
What will AI standards actually look like?
Many platforms bolt general-purpose AI onto existing tools. Agents are still expected to prompt, correct output, and self-assure compliance. It doesn’t scale and it doesn’t protect intermediaries.
However, when AI is built into the system rather than layered, it works within defined data sources, automatically applies industry requirements, and produces outputs that brokers can support. The system first performs an analysis. Agent reviews and approves.
This does not limit what AI can do. This reduces risk regarding where sensitive information goes and removes policy guesswork from day-to-day operations.
This is the norm for real estate to expect as AI continues to gain traction, but with the right foundation, it also doesn’t need to introduce unnecessary risk.
