Will AI take away my job?

One thing we’re often asked

• “Is this the end for real estate agents?”
• “Will I never have to use a lawyer again?”
• “Why should I use a mortgage broker when I’ve got ChatGPT?”

When taken from the point of view of the professional the question is always some form of:

Will AI take away my job?

The answer I give is no, and we have precedent. There’s been 100s of years of technological advancement and automation, but somehow most of us still have jobs.

We can also learn from quite recent past technology advances, like TradeMe or Facebook marketplace. In the TradeMe book, the author describes private listings as a small fraction of listed properties. You can sell your property on TradeMe without an agent right now. Yet somehow there is a real estate office on every corner!

What ends up happening is that technology becomes an advantage for those who adopt it first. Then eventually everyone has it and it becomes table stakes. Imagine not using email!

AI won’t take your job. But without AI you won’t be able to compete with those who embrace it.

What you can be sure of is that the “how” of your job will change. The “why” of helping buyers or vendors navigate the biggest and often most complex transaction of their lives doesn’t.

We’ve had hundreds of conversations with home buyers about what went wrong and what went well. The top tips we can give are:

• reply quickly,
• be organised regarding deadlines, and
• where possible help buyers have a map in their head about the next steps + upcoming roadblocks.

This will put you in the top ~10% of customer experience in an industry that lives and dies on referrals. While not dependent on AI, all these things can be improved by it. A real estate agent can do a great job selling one house communicating with hand written letters. It gets much harder when the amount of work increases and the expectations of the customers increase.

At the end of the day, what secures your job is accountability. It is very hard to beat a human who is accountable to a desired outcome and to the laws of the land. In fact one of the primary reasons we believe jobs for humans will always exist is that AI will never be making these decisions. AI will only ever advise. Someone is always accountable for the outcome.

Where Shire shines is in helping buyers identify the considerations regarding a specific property. Providers in the industry are almost always best placed to help buyers understand what these issues actually mean in the context of the current market.

We’ve written about what we think the biggest problem in the house buying process is here. Our solution is focused on solving this and we believe that our product will unite all stakeholders in getting a better outcome.

As a customer obsessed business we are always looking to talk to home buyers and leading providers about how we can help them identify problems or help their customers succeed.

To connect please book an introductory call below or contact jack@shire.community.

Kind regards,

Jack Shennan

CEO & Chief Economist of Shire