Nine out of 10 real estate professionals are using AI in some form. Yet, according to Fyxer’s Real Estate Briefing, only about a third say it’s actually helping them.
Fyxer published its report on the AI Productivity Trap in June. Its Real Estate Briefing uses the same research as the backdrop while going into specifics on how real estate agents are using AI right now.
The results are a mixed bag, with a huge gap between AI usage and perceived value.
Read on to see where it comes from and what closes it.
High Adoption, Little Time Saved
AI adoption got off to a bit of a bumpy start, but now most agents are using it every day. Fyxer reports 90% use it in some form, and Delta Research puts that figure at 97%.
Despite that reach, only 35% of agents call AI genuinely helpful, a 55 percentage point gap between usage and perceived value.
According to Fxyr, that’s the widest usage-value gap across any industry in its research.
Eleven percent of agents go even further, saying the AI tools available to them don’t even feel relevant to their role.
Part of the reason shows up in how agents spend their time. Client communication already eats up 32 percentage points more time than the cross-sector average.
Nearly half of the agents surveyed (47%) say reviewing and editing AI output is their biggest AI time sink, higher than the 42% reported by office workers generally.
Agents report losing 5.2 hours a week fact-checking and rewriting AI output, canceling out much of the time AI was supposed to save.
Fyxer’s report ties this back to what’s actually at stake for agents when AI output goes out under their name:
“In an industry built on relationships, every client communication, document and market analysis carries a personal reputation risk. This data exposes the inadequacy of generic tools, with AI outputs still needing significant human judgment before they’re client-ready.”
Generic Tools vs. Tools Built for Real Estate
MLS and property research tools, market analysis platforms, and client matching systems all exist for this exact purpose: free up time and energy for the tasks only a human real estate agent can do.
So far, adoption across those three categories still sits between just 21% and 25%.
Most agents reach for generic tools instead, leaning on general chat assistants and research tools that were never built with property data in mind.
Outside of chat tools, real estate professionals actually trail office workers overall on how often they use most categories of AI.
Here’s how Fyxer’s researchers explained the limitation of generic tools:
“Generic AI can draft an email, but it won’t have an inherent understanding of agent specific property data, client context or transaction workflows.”
Want to See What Better Client Conversations Look Like?
That’s exactly what Justin Benson (CEO of Shilo) and Mickey Neuberger (CMO of Realtor.com) are covering at BAM BBQ, our free virtual AI event on July 22.
Their session includes how to use AI to improve client conversations and communicate faster without sacrificing personalization.
Integration Is What Separates the Agents Getting Results
The tools agents choose matter less than how those tools connect to everything else they’re doing. Sixty-four percent of real estate professionals use AI tools that are integrated into their existing workflow, compared to 73% of office workers generally.
Thirty-six percent are running AI completely separate from their day-to-day work, compared to 27% elsewhere.
Fyxer’s broader research found that integrated tool users are 63 percentage points more productive than people relying on standalone tools.
The report describes what a real estate-specific integrated tool can actually do that a generic one can’t:
“Integrated tools built for real estate can connect to MLS data, be trained on market context and be embedded into communication workflows. They can reduce the AI-redo burden by generating outputs that are already contextually appropriate.”
A small group of agents is already proving what this looks like in practice.
- 21% of real estate professionals say AI has genuinely transformed how they work, a small but real “Superworker” group
- These agents use fully integrated tools at a high rate (62%) and pick their own tools rather than having them assigned (67%)
Three moves come out of the data for agents looking to get the most value from AI tools:
- Move from generic tools toward AI tools developed specifically for real estate
- Trial tools that plug directly into an existing workflow instead of running as a separate app
- Start with client communication and email, since that’s both the biggest time drain in the data and the lowest-friction place to begin
Turning Adoption Into Real Productivity Gains
Adoption is already solved, sitting at 90% or better. The real issue is fit.
Agents are widely using tools that weren’t built for how they actually work, and the time needed for damage control is erasing whatever time AI was supposed to give back.
Yet 71% of agents expect AI to make their job easier over the next year.
Getting there means switching to real estate-specific, integrated tools built for the job instead of settling for generic ones that require constant cleanup.
If you’re done with those and ready to join the 21% of real estate professionals seeing real business transformation from their AI usage, join us for BAM BBQ on Wednesday, July 22.
Whatever your experience with AI tools, this year’s free virtual summer event is your upgrade. Be ready to act on what you learn and change the way you communicate, create content, and close with AI.
Check out the speaker line-up and takeaways on our event page. Spots are limited, so save yours before they fill up.
