The American dream used to involve buying a home. Like giant corporations buy housing stock and wages were stagnantThe new American dream is to scroll through Zillow and salivate over what could have been had we been born into one of the wealthy families. To that end, Zillow just upped the AI game To make it easy to find a dream home you can never afford.
The popular real estate marketplace integrated some AI tools into its search feature last year, but it released a fairly significant software update that brings even more options. Users can now use natural language to find homes or rentals based on commute times or how far they are from schools or other points of interest.
Before conversational AI, humans will have to use filters to come up with a list of relevant habitats. Now you can just type in “homes 20 minutes from Red Hook” and get good listings. This should also be useful for areas that are popular destinations. For example, instead of looking at every listing adjacent to Minneapolis, you can type in “homes near Mall of America.”
Today’s update also enables the AI algorithm to search by price, so you can add preferred prices to the query. AI-powered search now includes the option to search for homes by ideal placement, location, style and condition. What’s new is money and commuting items.
As with all things AI, Zillow’s tool is still a work in progress. It will train itself as it is used to “better respond to search queries that use natural, human-like sentences.” You should also be careful with hallucinations. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Either way, the update is now rolling out to the iOS and Android apps, with website support coming soon.
The platform has never been shy about incorporating technology into its feature set. Submitted 3D virtual home tours a few years ago. Recently, the company has integrated with FaceTime’s SharePlay feature allowing cooperative viewing.
