Imagine knowing that someone is thinking about selling their house even before they’ve talked it over with their family. If you’re a real estate agent, that knowledge could be priceless. The power of artificial intelligence today means that companies can use predictive analytics to help people in a variety of industries make forward-thinking products and proactively reach potential customers.
While the phrase “artificial intelligence” conjures up an image of a robot learning to play chess, today’s AI is more closely tied to emotional intelligence. Predicting human behavior based on their previous activity, such as recommending the next book they want to download on their Kindle or suggesting a sweater in a color that blends with the scarf they purchased last week, is easy for big companies with the capacity to track every click and swipe of their customers. The new phase of AI is far more complex, and can predict decisions people will make even before they may have thought about something themselves.
More than 97 percent of leaders from 60 Fortune 1000 or industry-leading firms surveyed by New Vantage Partners reported that they are currently investing in building or launching big data and AI initiatives. Looking forward, 71.8 percent of these executives say the single greatest impact to their firms is coming in the form of AI.
The uses for AI are limited only by the imagination and creativity of companies that choose to use it. While it’s easy to understand how it works for basic consumer shopping habits, AI can be used to streamline growth for nearly any business, particularly those that depend on lead generation for new customers. Data analysis, AI and machine learning can improve internal efficiency and response times, increase revenue and enrich marketing campaigns.
But AI isn’t a self-generating technology. It depends on data—not just any data, but massive amounts of accurate data, collected, curated and multi-sourced to include robust and comprehensive coverage of property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard and residential and commercial neighborhood data.
Accurate, meaningful data is what powers AI. Imagine trying to predict the likelihood of a home sale based on one or two pieces of information, versus having access to an abundance of various datasets that can be easily implemented into your platform and then cross-analyzed with other datasets? The power lies in the data.
Companies rely on premium property data to provide their customers with tools based on AI, such as potential leads to pursue, an analysis of their current database of prospects, information that could help them cultivate more leads and market trends.
While AI has applications to every business, the ability to personalize connections is particularly important in real estate. Although the concept of AI may sound as if it depersonalizes information, its application can be used to customize experiences. For example, home search sites can use machine learning and AI to match and recommend properties with buyers based on their online behavior.
AI and machine learning are powered by dependable data—the more data available, the more accurate their predictive analytics tools can be.
Rob Barber is CEO of ATTOM Data Solutions. He directs enterprise, data and product strategy, customer acquisition and service, and corporate operations at the organization, and has more than 20 years of experience in the real estate information services industry. For more information, please visit www.attomdata.com.
