Homes.com launches AI-powered home search with Microsoft Azure OpenAI
CoStar Group’s Homes.com is joining other residential real estate listing portals in integrating artificial intelligence into the online home search process. However, unlike other portals who are creating applications within platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Homes.com is bringing the AI to its platform.
On Tuesday, the company launched Homes AI, a home search experience on Homes.com that is integrated with Microsoft Azure OpenAI. Through the integration, consumers can engage in real-time, two-way conversations by voice or text to search for and explore homes and neighborhoods.
“This innovation signals a shift as significant as the emergence of online search itself,” Andy Florance, the founder and CEO of CoStar Group, said in a statement. “Home shopping is no longer constrained by rigid filters and disjointed online experiences. Instead, it has become dynamic, consultative and deeply personalized – mirroring the way people naturally research and evaluate a home. We’ve spent years building the industry’s richest property data, and Homes AI harnesses that foundation to transform the consumer experience in a way that feels intuitive, human and incredibly powerful.”
Users may ask Homes AI not only for information regarding properties within their search parameters, but also for information about neighborhoods, local attractions and school districts. Additionally, when they find a property that interests them, consumers can defurnish spaces to see how a room looks without furniture.
Consumers can also see which filters were applied to their home search queries despite searching via natural language speech or text prompts. The feature also includes guardrails for fair housing issues that prevents the AI from delivering any responses to problematic queries.
Additionally, CoStar Group noted that Homes AI data remains in the Homes.com ecosystem and is never used to train or refine external AI models. The company also said the feature is not meant to replace a real estate agent, but to enable consumers to have more meaningful conversations with their agent about properties that pique their interest.
“Just as important, Homes AI is designed to enhance – not replace – the essential role of real estate professionals,” Florance said. “Agents remain at the center of every transaction and that will not change. In keeping with our ‘Your Listing, Your Lead’ commitment, inquiries from buyers and renters will always go directly to the listing agent, ensuring stronger connections, more meaningful conversations and better outcomes for everyone involved.”
CoStar credits this product launch to Livia Sponseller, the firm’s senior vice president of product and Andy Ventura, CoStar’s vice president of enterprise solution architecture.
Looking ahead, CoStar said this type of integration will be extended across all of its marketplaces including Apartments.com, LoopNet, Land.com, BizBuySell and others.
The launch of Homes AI comes after Homes.com debuted a more flexible search last year, which uses Microsoft voice technology and enables users to use natural language in their home search process. This also comes as CoStar faces pressure from activist investors to divest or shutdown Homes.com amid weaker than initially expected financial results. Despite this pressure, CoStar has maintained that it has no plans to divest or shutdown Homes.com.