Don’t miss: Inside AI Episode 4: Drew Fabrikant, CEO and Founder of Scout, explains what real estate should be preparing for next
About 18 months ago, Drew Fabrikant told me something I thought was completely insane. He predicted that his bot would eventually talk to my bot. They would have conversations, exchange information and then report back to us about what they had discussed.
I told him it was never going to happen. I was wrong.
Fabrikant is the founder and CEO of Scout, an AI-powered platform that helps real estate professionals find the right people, identify signals that they may be preparing to move and start more relevant conversations. Scout combines massive amounts of consumer data with AI to help agents focus on leads that are more likely to matter.
But Scout is only part of why I wanted Drew for Episode 4 of Inside AI with The REAL AI Guy. He has been thinking about artificial intelligence, human behavior and the direction this technology is heading for some time. More importantly, he has a habit of seeing around corners.
Today, agentic AI is moving us rapidly toward the world Drew described. AI can do more than answer questions, summarize documents or write social media posts. AI agents can take action, communicate with other agents and complete increasingly complex tasks with less human involvement.
In our conversation, we explored what Drew has learned from building with AI, where real estate is falling behind and why the industry must solve its workflow and data problems before it can fully benefit from what is coming.
From smart chatbots to AI that acts
When Fabrikant first made his bot-to-bot prediction, generative AI was still largely about chatbots. That has changed quickly.
“Agentic is, it’s now a real word, right?” he said. “And now we’ve got things that actually do things.”
That distinction matters because a chatbot waits for you to ask a question. An AI agent can be assigned a goal, determine what needs to happen and begin completing the work. Multiple AI agents can also collaborate, with different agents handling separate parts of a larger process.
For agents and brokers, that could eventually mean systems that coordinate marketing, update client records, analyze data, prepare communications, schedule follow-up and monitor transactions with far less manual work. Fabrikant believes the productivity gains could be enormous, but his practical advice is to begin with the problems that already consume the most time.
“The first thing I would always suggest doing is take the things that take you a lot of time or the really hard problems that you can’t solve, and throw an agent at it,” he said.
That is a better starting point than chasing whatever AI tool happens to be getting the most attention this week.
Automate the easy work, not the relationship
The fear I hear most often from real estate agents is that AI will eventually replace the human side of their business. Fabrikant does not see it that way. He believes AI should handle more of the routine work, so agents have additional time for the conversations, judgment and personal relationships that still require a human being.
“The easy things should be automated, and that makes everyone’s life easier and more comfortable, and the hard things still go through humans,” he said. “You’re not going to lose that high-touch skill. You’re just going to do more of it.”
That is the real opportunity. Real estate is anything but pure analytics. Buying or selling a home is emotional, complicated and often stressful. AI can organize information and automate repetitive tasks, but it cannot fully replace an experienced advisor who understands the people, the property and the local market.
Agents who ignore AI, however, will still face a major disadvantage. Someone with less experience but better tools may be able to complete far more work in the same amount of time. The answer is not to surrender the relationship to AI. It’s to use AI to create more time for the relationship.
AI slop creates a trust problem
AI has made content faster and easier to create. It also has washed social media, email and the web with generic writing, artificial images and repetitive ideas. The result is what we call AI slop.
Fabrikant sees social media automation as a double-edged sword. Some content creation can and should be automated, but agents cannot outsource their identity or their judgment.
“Be your authentic self. Make sure your authentic self comes out,” he said. “Provide the best information to the most relevant people in the most relevant way.”
The danger is not simply producing bad content. It is losing trust.
“If you haven’t proofread it and you haven’t gone through your social or whatever asset you’re creating, chances are somebody’s going to know, they’re going to lose trust in you, and it’s game over from there,” he said.
Real estate is a trust business, and AI does not change that. It raises the stakes. The more synthetic content consumers encounter, the more valuable genuinely useful, local and unmistakably human communication will become.
Better AI begins with better data
Many agents are still using AI almost exclusively for listing descriptions, emails and social media posts. Fabrikant believes the bigger opportunities are in data and workflows.
“Data workflows. It’s always coming down to data workflows,” he said.
That starts with the information inside the CRM.
“If your data isn’t tight on the information about the individual that you’re dealing with, how can you possibly be personalized?” he asked. “It’s going to turn into AI slop, and it’s just going to give you the same thing that everybody else is getting.”
AI cannot produce truly personalized service from incomplete, outdated or disorganized information. It also cannot automate a process that nobody has clearly defined.
“If you don’t know what comes first, second, third, fourth, and have decision trees around it, you’ll never be able to program or tell an AI agent what to do,” he said.
That may be the most important takeaway for brokerage leaders. Before buying another AI tool, document the workflow, clean the data and decide where human review is essential. Then determine where AI can create a measurable improvement.
Critical systems can’t be built with spit and glue
Fabrikant’s background as an attorney has shaped how he thinks about AI risk. He has spent much of his career working in regulated industries, and he expects regulation to play a much larger role as AI agents gain greater autonomy.
He predicts a future divided between regulated and unregulated AI, with higher standards for systems touching sensitive areas such as government, finance, defense and potentially real estate. This is also why he cautions agents against casually building their own business-critical AI tools without understanding the risks.
“Don’t go vibe coding like you know everything that you need to vibe code,” he said.
Instead, agents and brokerages should look for established systems from vendors that have already addressed security, data protection, workflows, guardrails and human oversight.
“Don’t put it together with spit and glue, because either you get found out, right? Your reputation takes a hit, or in X months when regulation does come, you got to take everything you build and throw it away in favor of something else,” he added.
Experimenting with AI is essential. Handing sensitive client data or critical business decisions to an improvised system is something else entirely.
Look beyond real estate
Fabrikant also offered one of the best pieces of advice for anyone trying to anticipate where AI is going next: stop looking only at real estate.
“I think one of the smartest things to do is to look at other industries that are ahead of the curve and figure out what they’re using AI for and how they’re using it in novel ways,” he said.
Finance, insurance, consumer goods and other industries are already testing AI in ways that may eventually reach real estate. Watching those industries can help agents, brokers and technology leaders spot useful applications earlier.
The goal is not to copy every new use case. It is to recognize which ideas could solve a genuine real estate problem. That is where the industry needs to focus now because AI is moving beyond content creation. The next phase is about systems that take action, communicate with other systems and operate with greater independence. That creates extraordinary opportunities, along with risks that cannot be ignored.
Drew was not crazy when he predicted that our bots would talk to one another, he was just early.
Watch Episode 4 of Inside AI with The REAL AI Guy to hear the full conversation with Drew Fabrikant, founder and CEO of Scout.
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Kevin Hawkins, a partner with WAV Group, is editor and co-founder of REAL AI, real estate’s No. 1 AI newsletter, its weekly podcast and the Inside AI with The REAL AI Guy video interview series. He has written more about AI than anyone in real estate. Hawkins is the Amazon bestselling author of The REAL AI Guide for Real Estate Agents and is known throughout the industry as The REAL AI Guy, teaching thousands of real estate agents how to use AI in the best and safest ways.
