Zillow Group CEO Rich Barton has been through several technology evolutions. And he thinks another one may be upon us now.
“The arrival of conversational generative artificial intelligence may be a platform shift on par with the introduction of the graphical user interface or the touch interface on the first smartphones,” Barton wrote in a letter to shareholders Wednesday.
Zillow this week rolled out a new plugin for ChatGPT that lets people search for real estate listings by having a conversation with OpenAI’s chatbot.
Conversational AI “has the potential to improve our customer and partner experiences, meaningfully increase the productivity of our workforce and the velocity of our output, and ultimately drive growth for both Zillow and our partners’ businesses,” wrote Barton, the Expedia and Glassdoor co-founder who helped launch Zillow back in 2006.
Zillow’s announcement this week was focused on the customer search experience. It’s likely also thinking about how to build new tools for real estate agents, which are already using ChatGPT.
Taking advantage of new technology has been a key growth driver for Zillow, from its famous Zestimate price estimate tool to newer features such as AI-generated immersive floor plans.
Barton called the company’s new ChatGPT tool a “small sandbox in which we will learn and iterate rapidly.”
Zillow rival Redfin also announced its own ChatGPT plugin this week. Companies such as Coca-Cola and Duolingo are testing ways to use generative AI.
But it certainly still feels like the throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks phase of the burgeoning tech.
“The Zillow ChatGPT plugin is currently in its alpha phase, providing an opportunity for Zillow to refine and enhance the experience based on user interactions,” Zillow said in its press release. “OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has implemented safeguards to minimize inaccuracies and prevent inappropriate responses, but users should keep in mind that at times the experience might not work exactly as expected.”
