For anybody who's recently been exploring the incredible power of artificial intelligence, you'll know that what I'm about to share with you in this blog post is not an exaggeration.
If you're anything like most people above the age of about 30 you'll probably have thought that to access artificial intelligence in a user-friendly format that would help you accomplish tasks faster and more efficiently, would be at least another 20 or 30 years away.
In fact, I remember watching a video a couple of years ago from Boston Dynamics which is a company building artificial intelligence robots. The earlier versions were prone to many failures, malfunctions, and problems, especially once they'd fallen over. However, the developments over the course of the last few years have quite literally left me speechless.
So when I first started playing around with Chat-GPT earlier this year, I was amazed that once it was given the right instructions, it would quite literally give you access to information in a fast and efficient way that has never been seen before. In fact, its ability to correctly receive instructions, interpret information and then act upon it to produce an accurate outcome to any task it's been set is quite frankly astonishing!
To demonstrate its awesome power, I asked my partner (who's a doctor) to give me a complex medical question. I typed the question and asked it to provide some background information to its answer. After I hit enter, we both sat in amazement as within seconds, the A.I. machine drafted a response which she felt was entirely accurate.
So this leads us to a very interesting point and a question which needs to be asked; "Is A.I. going to replace estate agents and conveyancers?"
And without wishing to duck out of giving an affirmative answer, I believe the answer is, "it depends."
Because here's the reality of our present situation in the housing world. The general public are absolutely sick and tired of the delays and poor service they encounter when they try to move home. It should be an event that's enjoyable and something to look forward to: a great experience for all involved! However, the reality is far from it.
All too often, it's a journey that's extremely confusing, full of uncertainty, and one where buyers and sellers cannot get any answers to their particular questions because they're being guided by supposed experts who have never personally gone through the process of buying and selling a property themselves.
Quite frankly, considering it's the most expensive purchase they'll ever make, and they're paying a not unsubstantial amount of money for the privilege, they deserve better.
With this in mind, I genuinely believe that estate agency should be the most revered of professions instead of one of the least trusted. The same with conveyancing services and law firms, who should fare better in the trust stakes than they currently do.
As an example, if you were a salesperson in the car game, and had aspirations to make it to the top of the tree by becoming a Rolls-Royce car salesman, you'd be in a showroom surrounded by supercars that cost as much as a family home. That would be an incredible place to work! Accordingly, anybody looking to spend that sort of money on a car would be treated in a way that only a Rolls-Royce dealership can offer.
Yet when it comes to buying and selling ever more expensive assets, where buyers are spending their entire life savings on a deposit for a property and borrowing hundreds of thousands of pounds on a mortgage for the next 25+ years, they're unfortunately left at the mercy of Joe, the 23-year-old estate agent and his poorly-fitting polyester suit, who's never personally bought or sold a property before in his life. Yet he's somehow charged with guiding his clients through the entire process.
So I have to ask the question; doesn't the entire industry and our beloved clients deserve more? If you stop and think about it for a moment, the answer has to be a resounding YES!
And here's my deeper dive on why I think it depends if A.I. will take over estate agency and conveyancing. Simply put, there's a "land-grab" going on at the moment by those who embrace A.I. and those who fail to adopt new working practices. Those larger agencies and law firms who see the potential of A.I. to do the heavy lifting on repetitive tasks, or even train it to do more complex ones, will find they're the podium winners, whilst many others will be put out of business. They simply won't be able to compete.
However, I'm not suggesting for one minute that estate agents and conveyancers could be entirely replaced nor consumed by A.I. (yet) but I do think that if you want to be more successful in this industry, there's a very serious need to collaborate and become the best you can be within a network that's dedicated and determined to deliver excellence, rather than the current approach which frankly leaves clients exasperated, vowing with their dying breath to never go through it again.
At WiggyWam, we're big believers in a collaborative approach to improving the efficiency of transactions. And with the systemic threat of A.I. around the corner, we firmly believe that only through a collaborative and more professional approach to buying and selling property, will we all deliver the excellence customers are demanding, and more importantly, will pay for.
Collaboration allows those agents and conveyancers intent on delivering the very best service they can to their clients, to make the fees they charge almost irrelevant because the value the client receives in exchange, is significantly higher than the fee they pay.
My firm belief, however, is that it's only those who have conviction in themselves and have the heart-centred ability to deliver what the client is desperately begging for, will be the ones that succeed, whilst others will fade into the Sea of obscurity because they're no more than a commodity against a generic A.I. machine that can do the job better for pennies.
So if you believe in a better future and wish to collaborate with the best to raise the standards of this beautiful industry, then we thoroughly encourage you to join WiggyWam as we lead the Property Revolution together.
You can find out more by visiting www.wiggywam.co.uk and clicking on the Book Demo button now to select a date and time that's right for you.