By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 39
REAL AI is a human-created weekly roundup of all things related to artificial intelligence in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact our industry. We post a new edition every Friday, and our free newsletter is delivered every Monday.
Clear Capital AI point of view
If AI ever needs a fairness advocacy group, they should recruit Clear Capital’s Kenon Chen to spearhead the effort.
Real estate agents may know Clear Capital, a national real estate valuation technology company, best from its September 2021 acquisition of floor plan creator CubiCasa.
Talking with Kenon, Clear Capital’s EVP of Strategy and Growth, at Blueprint in Las Vegas, among the first words he used to discuss his views on artificial intelligence included “fairness,” “no discrimination,” and “accuracy.” He emphasized, “Fairness is super important to us.”
He also notes that as our industry embraces AI, we “need to understand how things really impact the people that we’re supposed to be helping the most, which is potential homebuyers and homeowners; and not just see it as a conceptual problem to solve, but this is about the people, right?”
While Kenon joined Clear Capital over two decades ago as head of technology, he brings a fresh perspective to real estate and artificial intelligence.
A self-described “creative soul,” his background includes a mix of technology, music, and consulting, allowing him to approach solving challenging business problems with creativity and passion – an ideal formula to leverage the next generation of AI.
He sees the next-gen as a fusion of generative AI, deep machine learning, and computer vision, not only creating better data derived from images but becoming “the building blocks to create more automated decisions. That’s what excites me: the combination of these things. It’s not like any one thing’s going to solve everything.”
“Covid accelerated a number of different changes in behavior and application of technology,” Kenon said, including rapid tech adoption by agents. For Clear Capital, it fast-tracked the appraisal modernization roadmap that grew out of work they began with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2017.
Today, appraisal modernization is driving the need for AI-driven technology that captures robust data collection and creates a standardized way that works in “every community, every time,” and eliminates “appraisers spending a week of their month in a car just driving around; that seems pretty inefficient,” he said.
While Kenon recognizes the presence of AI washing in the market today, he’s optimistic, not just about AI but the real estate market in general.
“What I’m seeing this year is a lot of intensity and energy, and I feel like something’s about to kind of turn the corner, if you will, in a positive way,” he said, adding, “I’m seeing a lot of optimism, a lot of folks that have survived the downturn, and really worked hard to find the right fit that could scale. So, I’m kind of excited to see how things scale from here, with a little bit of tailwinds, that would be fun to see.”
Kenon also said Clear Capital has some exciting things coming with CubiCasa as they leverage the newest developments in their proprietary technology and “plugging in all the AI disciplines into the process to ensure higher quality and more efficiency,” he said. (-Kevin)
Apple Intelligence gets small
No other tech firm has delivered on the promise of “good things come in small packages” better than Apple. I mean, do you remember the size of the first cell phone? It came in a suitcase!
Two major seismic shifts are coming together. The first one was the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. The second shift was generative AI, and arguably best marked by the Feb. 2023 launch of the subscription model of ChatGPT Plus.
The result is a fusion of gen AI, machine learning, predictive analytics, and computer vision packaged as Apple Intelligence. New features have just started to roll out, including Apple’s new iPhone 16 with its advanced AI chip and its latest operating system, iOS 18.
Like Steve Martin’s 1977 Grammy Award-winning album, “Let’s Get Small,” AI is going micro. Large language models or LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Meta AI, and Gemini are connected to the cloud and consume massive amounts of power to operate.
Apple is beginning to integrate Micromodels or Small Language Models, combined with cloud-based models, directly into their iPhones. Many AI models will run entirely on-device, and when cloud processing is needed, it will be gated, encrypted, and anonymized. This enables your phone to learn more about your habits and preferences over time, potentially surpassing the insight Google has about you.
With Apple Intelligence, Apple is hinting that they will be AI-agnostic, allowing you to select your preferred AI assistant – if it meets Apple’s strict privacy and security guidelines. Initially, an enhanced Siri integrated with ChatGPT will be the default, but the day may come when you can set other chatbots as your default AI on your iPhone.
What does this mean for agents? In the palm of your hand will be an even smarter supercomputer, helping you save time writing, proofreading, summarizing texts, emails, and even phone calls. When all the AI tools are rolled out over the next year, smartphones will become an agent’s virtual assistant, automating many daily tasks, from sorting and summarizing your email inbox to creating first-draft responses.
Apple Intelligence is getting small, and that’s a very good thing for real estate agents. (-Kevin)
AI Facts
- 77% of businesses reported elevated leads and client acquisition as a result of adopting Generative AI – Google
- 59% of business leaders said they worry about measuring AI’s productivity gains – Microsoft
- 55% of marketers view Generative AI as a leading consumer trend – Martech
- 44% of organizations use Generative AI to create test cases for training interactive agents – IBM
- 80% of customers stated they are comfortable with human agents utilizing Generative AI to deliver better guidance – Telus International
Source: Master of Code (-Korey)
AI Headlines
‘I don’t think any property is safe’: South Florida man says he almost became a victim to AI real estate fraud | 9/19/24 7 News Miami – WSVN
How AI was used in South Florida to dup a real estate investor
OpenAI tackles global language divide with massive multilingual AI dataset release | 9/23/24 VentureBeat
OpenAI’s new multilingual dataset evaluates the performance of language models across 14 languages.
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are more of an AI device than ever with new updates | 9/25/24 Mashable
Live translation is one of the many new Smart Glasses features introduced at Meta Connect.
Surging AI demand could cause the world’s next chip shortage, research says | 9/25/24 CNBC
The AI explosion is disrupting the global supply chain more than usual.
Finally, HP is adding AI to its printers | 9/26/24 The Verge
AI integration will fix printing errors before they are output. (-Korey)
AI Quote of the Week
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