realestate.com.au has unveiled realAssist, a new AI-powered conversational companion designed to help homeowners better understand their realEstimate property valuation.
Building on realestate.com.au’s 30 years of market leadership, the new assistant is powered by OpenAI and is one of eight AI-prime features on realestate.com.au.
Available to logged in realestate.com.au members who track a property, users can ask the realAssist companion questions about their realEstimate property valuation. The assistant will answer those questions with insights and offer next action prompts to educate homeowners and guide them in their property journey.
One in three Australian homes are tracked by their owner on realestate.com.au, demonstrating the value homeowners place in realEstimate. realestate.com.au’s personalised owner dashboard experience, including realEstimate, delivers the highest number of seller leads and underpins the potential value provided to real estate agent customers.
realAssist and AI search will continue to roll out to homeowners and property seekers in the coming weeks.
The launch of realAssist comes as realestate.com.au expands its natural language AI search feature to all property seekers, following a successful 12-month pilot. AI search allows property seekers to search for property in the same way that they speak.
Homeowners using realestate.com.au’s website can ask realAssist questions such as, “Why is my property valuation lower than I expected?” and the companion will suggest a range of actions the homeowner can take to ensure their realEstimate is as accurate as possible. The homeowner may be prompted to update their property attributes – an action taken on more than 140,000 homes in the past 12 months – to enable an updated realEstimate property valuation.
REA Group chief product and audience officer, Jonathan Swift, said rapidly changing consumer expectations were accelerating the adoption of AI in consumer experiences.
“We’ve been investing in AI and using the technology for over a decade but the capability we have now and the pace at which we’re developing AI-powered products is truly transforming how buyers, sellers, renters and our real estate agent customers engage on realestate.com.au”.
“Australians are obsessed with property but it’s often an emotional and complex journey. realAssist aims to demystify property valuation, helping homeowners build their knowledge and empowering them to take the next step”.
“realAssist uses industry best practice to deliver a high-quality agentic AI experience that can be scaled across our platform. As realAssist applications expand, our goal is for it to become an essential tool for all Australians throughout their property journey”.
“We have been testing and learning about natural language search for some time so that we can be really intentional in how we roll it out and make sure it actually solves pain points for property seekers,” said Swift.
“AI search is about giving property seekers more flexibility, choice and making it easier than ever before to search for property. We see this feature as a partner, not a replacement, for search filters. Buying a property is one of the biggest financial decisions many people will make and we know that they still want control over that search process.
“realestate.com.au’s unparalleled audience, coupled with our proprietary data, places us in a strong position to harness AI and deliver unique and valuable insights and experiences for consumers and customers. We will continue to iterate the features we are currently deploying by adding capability, improving the user experience and developing next generation property search and match,” said Swift.
realestate.com.au will continue to work with technology businesses, including OpenAI, to build on existing capability and power game-changing features.
