The AI Revolution in Real Estate: Why the Next 90 Days Will Define Your Next 10 Years

A Keynote Address to 5,000 Realtors at NAR NXT 2025

I opened my keynote at the National Association of Realtors Annual Conference with something unexpected: a music video. Not just any music video, but one featuring a band performing an original song about AI and real estate, complete with professional production values and engaging visuals.

Here's the twist: none of it was real. The band doesn't exist. The music was generated by AI. The entire production was created across the street at the Marriott Marquis the night before, at around 11 PM.

If I had told you three years ago that anyone could create an on-demand music video with non-existent people performing original music, you would have thought I was crazy. Yet here we are in 2025, living in what I believe is a completely different world.

Living in the Future (Unevenly Distributed)

They say the future is not evenly distributed, but where it is distributed is profound. I spend over 90% of my waking hours immersed in AI : building with it, living in it, and witnessing a completely reimagined world taking shape before our eyes.

What I wanted to convey to those 5,000 real estate professionals, and what I want to share with you now, is this: we are at an inflection point that will separate winners from losers, just like the digital revolution did. But unlike previous technological shifts, we can do something about it right now.

The Generational Context: Why This Time Is Different

Throughout my career, I've helped major brands understand the new consumer. When I entered the workforce in 2000, that new consumer was the Millennial generation—the first to grow up with the Internet in their homes. As a Gen Xer, when I tell my kids there was no Internet when I grew up, they look at me the way I looked at my grandfather when he told me he walked to school with no shoes on.

Then came Gen Z, whose defining technology was the iPhone. Suddenly, the power of the Internet became an appendage to their bodies. This ushered in a mobile-driven society where two-thirds of all e-commerce now happens on phones, not laptops or desktops.

Now we have Gen Alpha—kids aged 0 to 14 who will never know a world without AI. They will never know a world without technology they can interact with the same way they do with humans. While it may seem foreign or even creepy for a Gen Alpha child to have an intimate relationship with an AI chatbot, the reality is their brains are being hardwired to communicate with this powerful technology that understands emotion, demonstrates creativity, and learns about them over time.

Whether we think this is positive or negative, we are not going backwards. Companies will not put this genie back in the bottle. They will not start using AI less over time. We have no choice but to understand it, adopt it, and move forward.

Why AI Is Unprecedented in Its Power

AI is improving at a rate we've never witnessed with any technology in human history. The first iPhone to the second iPhone took 18 months. I would argue there has been more innovation in AI in the last 18 months than over the entire lifecycle of the iPhone.

When I speak globally about AI, event organizers often ask for my presentation a couple of weeks in advance. I always refuse. Even during that Houston keynote, I discussed developments that had emerged just that week. Humans aren't actually meant to consume technology evolving this rapidly, but it is happening, and it unlocks unlimited potential and promise.

The Democratization of Technology: My Mom's Story

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of AI is how incredibly easy it is to use. There's a massive misconception that AI is only for young tech whizzes. Let me share a story that proves otherwise.

My mother lives alone in Florida and would text me two to three times a week asking for her Netflix password, how to log into Hulu, or what her WiFi password was. While I happily obliged (I'm a good son, after all), I realized there had to be a better way.

So I created Mom GPT—her own personal chatbot. I visited her house in South Florida, scanned every appliance manual, created a spreadsheet with every password she would ever need, and fed it all into her custom version of ChatGPT. Now, before reaching out to me, she simply texts this chatbot, which has a shortcut on her iPhone home screen.

The result? My mom doesn't call me nearly as much. But more importantly, it illustrates a crucial point: to use AI, you only need to know how to communicate in any language. It's no different than texting a friend. This is unlike any technological revolution in the past, with minimal learning curve and virtually no coding required for those who want to build.

My Personal AI Journey: From CEO to Builder

I'm not an engineer. I've never written a line of code. I run a software company called Suzy with 300 employees and 80 software engineers. When ChatGPT first emerged, I knew it was significant, so I told my engineering team to "figure out AI." I waited and waited, but very little happened.

Everything I read told me: "It's all about the data. You don't need to code. Just dive in." So I made a decision to take the reins of AI back myself. I also believe that to be great at something, you need to be passionate about it.

Before solving how to use AI for my business, I decided to use AI to solve a problem in my own life. Having just turned 50 with two small children (ages 1 and 4) plus two older children in college, my problem was simple: I want to stay alive as long as possible.

I gathered 25 years of personal health information—MRIs, X-rays, blood tests, doctor's notes from external hard drives and file cabinets. I scanned, organized, and created my own personal health bot, a large language model trained exclusively on my health data.

I created what's called a "base prompt," telling the AI: "You are a leading doctor from Johns Hopkins University, renowned and award-winning, and you have one goal: to keep Matt Britton alive."

The process took about a week. Then, one morning over coffee, I asked my first question: "If I'm going to die in five years, what's the most likely cause?"

The response freaked me out. AI has no bedside manner—it gave it to me straight, citing blood test markers from 11 years ago and referencing studies explaining why I was most likely to die from that particular cause. When I asked about 10 years out, it identified a different cause entirely.

This experience opened my eyes to what AI can do when you approach it correctly: identify a problem, determine what data helps solve it, and build a solution.

The Education Crisis and What Really Matters Now

In March 2025, I saw an article about China teaching AI literacy to children starting at age 6. Some may think that's crazy, but I remember when schools banned the Internet because it wasn't considered appropriate for kids. Now schools have smart boards and Internet everywhere.

By teaching AI early, China isn't just building AI literacy—they're building AI trust and breeding a culture of innovation around this technology.

Our American education system is broken because it's built on memorization and regurgitation, on coloring inside the lines. I was a terrible student but great at pulling all-nighters, cramming information and Red Bull, then regurgitating both the next morning. That approach made sense then. It doesn't now.

In a world where knowledge is becoming commoditized, your ability to memorize and spit back information simply isn't relevant anymore. If you're an accountant who knows how to do taxes, a lawyer who knows how to write contracts, or a software engineer who knows how to code, those are exactly the skills AI is becoming adept at replacing.

In fact, I used AI to help with my taxes, and it found a $5,000 deduction my expensive accountant missed. Now imagine that model twice as smart seven months from now.

The Skills That Will Withstand the Test of Time

A recent World Economic Forum study surveyed CEOs globally about the most important workplace skills. The answer: creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, perseverance, and agility.

If you're someone who comes to work every day and waits to be told what to do—if your job is deterministic, meaning you know in November what you'll be doing in March—then your job is at risk. AI excels at deterministic, rote, routine tasks.

But analytical thinking, resilience, creativity, and the ability to build relationships will withstand the test of time. We all know that being a realtor is fundamentally about building relationships and human trust at the moment when someone makes the most important financial decision of their life. That will never go away.

But here's the question: How much of your day is actually spent building those relationships versus doing paperwork, sending emails, or organizing information? I'd bet not nearly enough time is spent on what makes you uniquely human.

Real Estate: The World's Most Inefficient Large Asset Class

As I immersed myself in understanding the real estate industry, one truth became crystal clear: real estate is the world's most inefficient large asset class.

Your industry is filled with manual workflows, fragmented data everywhere, and legacy systems that make your job harder while giving customers an experience more akin to buying a car than ordering an Uber. There's minimal automation and very little AI deployment in your daily workflows and customer interactions.

This represents the ultimate unlock. If you could spend more time with customers, strategizing and building relationships—doing uniquely human things—while spending less time pouring through data, dealing with manual workflows and legacy systems, you'd become exponentially more productive.

The inflection point is here. We can no longer wait. The work you do in the next 90 to 120 days will impact the next 10 years of your career.

The Internet Has a New Front Door

At the keynote, I asked for a show of hands: "How many people have used ChatGPT in the last couple months to find something you previously would have used Google for?"

From where I stood, it looked like 80% of the audience raised their hands. A year ago, it would have been 20%.

Google has arguably had the best business model of all time. It became a verb—the way everybody finds everything. But now I'm seeing a massive shift. That shift alone will change markets.

Fifty percent of consumers already use AI-powered search today. The Internet has a new front door. The notion of entering a search query and receiving a list of blue links will soon be viewed the way we look at Yellow Pages today.

The difference is conversational AI. Instead of selecting from blue links, you're having a dialogue:

"I'm looking for 3-bedroom apartments in South Beach."

The AI provides information, then you continue: "Is there a great realtor who can help me?"

The critical question: Are you coming up when ChatGPT recommends realtors in South Beach?

If you're a realtor in South Beach, you need to conduct these searches regularly and discover who ChatGPT recommends. How do you get recommended? Just like Google, it comes down to content—but with a crucial difference: specificity.

Unlike Google's single search-and-output model, by the time someone asks ChatGPT for a broker, it already knows they're looking in South Beach for a three-bedroom property. Its ability to crawl content and recommend you depends on how much specific content you have available.

If I were a South Beach realtor, I'd write articles about being the best realtor for finding three-bedroom apartments in South Beach, beachfront homes, properties near train stations—pushing out as much targeted content as possible. This specificity allows ChatGPT to deliver precisely what users need.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (or at least twice in my lifetime). There's a completely new front door for information discovery, and if you move fast, you can position yourself advantageously.

As a public speaker, 60-70% of my inquiries this year came from people asking ChatGPT for a leading AI speaker. It's happening everywhere and has changed how I create content. It should change how you create content too.

2026 will be the tipping point—the year when 99% of people will use AI to find information. Now is the time to act.

Practical Applications: What I Built for Real Estate

To demonstrate AI's potential, I put myself in your shoes and built several real estate applications.

The Music Video Listing

I found a property on Zillow—9907 Gold Cup Way in Houston—and created AI-generated content around it using two approaches.

First, I used a tool called HeyGen, taking the listing script, selecting an avatar, and pulling in listing photos to create a decent video. It was better than what most people already produce.

But then, around midnight after creating the opening music video, I thought: What if I could turn a listing into a music video?

The result was a country music video featuring an AI-generated performer singing about the property's features—palm trees, waterfall, swim-up bar, no rear neighbors. It was creative, entertaining, and exactly how modern consumers want to engage with content.

I wasn't singing (I don't even like country music), and the AI avatar had better skin than me. But it wasn't hard to create, and I'm providing step-by-step instructions to anyone who wants the presentation deck.

You could build automation to create this for a thousand listings while you sleep. These opportunities exist everywhere—AI unlocks possibilities no one has touched yet.

The NYC Open Data Bot

One of my closest friends runs a large Brooklyn brokerage. His biggest problem? Data access. Agents in the field constantly ask about school districts, crime rates, noise levels, upcoming construction.

I researched and discovered NYC Open Data—spreadsheets containing 4 million lines of information on everything from crime rates and air quality to traffic by city block, every sale, and every Department of Buildings permit issued.

This data always existed, but who has time to download 4-million-line spreadsheets that crash computers?

I took Department of Buildings permit data and created a chatbot trained on it. Now agents can instantly ask questions like: "Give me the five most recent permits issued on this block" or "Tell me about the building being constructed and how many units it will have."

This took me an hour or two to build. Now all my friend's agents have instant access to information about permits, schools, crime rates, and traffic. The data existed; AI made it instantly accessible on the go.

Hyper-Personalization at Scale

I created an email newsletter that sends to an audience of one. Traditional email newsletters are one-to-many—Joe and Joanne receive identical emails.

In the AI age, you can build tools that create emails for an audience of one. My FutureProof AI email system maintains a database knowing your company, title, workplace, and posting history. It hyper-personalizes emails for each recipient, even including their picture.

Imagine applications for this: knowing when someone has young children, just changed jobs, or prefers homes with swim-up bars. Suddenly, what you're sending becomes far more relevant and contextual, making your communication exponentially more powerful.

Very few people will implement this, but those who do will leap ahead because they'll speak to customers in their language, about what matters to them.

The Four Pillars of Being AI-First

As I wrapped up my keynote, I left the audience with core principles for succeeding in this AI-first era:

1. Be a Problem Solver

Focus on identifying problems that need solving. In the AI age, what you solve matters more than how you solve it. The "how" is increasingly commoditized knowledge work. Coming up with the concept is now more valuable than executing it.

2. Practice Perseverance

Don't give up after step three when building something new. You have an ultimate guide in ChatGPT or other large language models. When something doesn't work, ask: "This isn't working—help me understand why." Keep pushing through.

3. Understand the Power of Data

Data drives everything in business. It always has, but now it's exponentially more accessible. Whether it's NYC Open Data or your own business intelligence, data unlocks AI's potential.

4. Be Action-Oriented

Don't wait to be told to build something with AI. Just build it. No one is coming to save us. If we want to be on the right side of this transformation and open incredible career opportunities, the tools are waiting. We just need the willingness to learn and a patient mindset.

You Don't Need to Be an Expert to Do Something Great

This is my core message: You don't need to be an expert to do something great. That's an excuse.

If you want to be on the right side of this incredible yet scary transformation, you must act. Yes, I could have spent my keynote frightening everyone about AI's potential for job loss, nefarious actors, fraud, and deepfakes. But that's not why I was there.

I was there to empower people.

You don't need expertise to do something great. You need to identify the most important problems in your life or career, force rank them, dive in, and ask ChatGPT for step-by-step instructions. With the framework I've provided, you can build solutions.

I would love nothing more than hearing from people three to six months from now saying, "I just built this—I can't believe I did it." Someone who attended one of my previous keynotes built a math tutor for his struggling 8-year-old son, and they use it daily.

Start with your personal life before work. You'll be more passionate, less encumbered, and better positioned to build things that matter. Then take those learnings to your professional life.

The Adoption Curve: From Tool to Agent

We're progressing through an AI adoption curve. Right now, most people use AI as a tool:

"Hey ChatGPT, I'm hosting 10 people and making spaghetti and meatballs. Give me an ingredient list for the market."

The next step is automation—workflows that move from step one to two to three without intervention.

Where we're headed, and the word you'll hear constantly in 2026, is AI agents. Unlike automation that follows predetermined steps, an AI agent might notice: "Matt, you actually know that person who signed up. Instead of just sending them the deck, I'm going to invite them to lunch next time you're in New York." It has autonomy to make decisions on your behalf.

Many companies are already deploying AI agents. This technology, trained correctly as a decision-maker, has massive applications. A year from now, we'll be discussing this extensively.

The Time to Act Is Now

The real estate industry stands at a crossroads. Manual workflows, legacy systems, and inefficient processes have dominated for too long. AI offers the opportunity to reclaim time for what matters most: building relationships, providing strategic guidance, and delivering the human connection that clients need during life's biggest financial decisions.

But this window won't stay open forever. Early adopters will establish themselves as ChatGPT-recommended experts, build automated systems that 10x their productivity, and create personalized experiences that competitors can't match.

The next 90 to 120 days aren't just important—they're defining. The work you do now, the AI literacy you build, the tools you create, and the content you produce will determine your position in an industry being fundamentally transformed.

There's incredible potential waiting. There's also uncertainty and, yes, reasons to be concerned. But hiding from this revolution or hoping it passes won't work. Companies won't use less AI. Consumers won't return to old search patterns. Technology won't slow its exponential growth.

The only question is: Will you be on the right side of this transformation?

The tools are accessible. The knowledge is available. The opportunity is here. All that's required is initiative, perseverance, and the willingness to start.

Your AI journey doesn't begin when you feel ready. It begins when you identify that first problem worth solving and take that first step forward.