Artificial intelligence has been working in the background of our lives for decades now. However, the emergence of large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, has catapulted the technology into the public psyche.
The industry’s major portals — Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com and Homes.com — have moved AI to the forefront of their engagement strategies, with the launch of apps within ChatGPT and the introduction of AI-powered natural language search.
The moves make sense: An October 2025 Realtor.com survey revealed 82 percent of Americans are using AI tools to start their homebuying journeys. However, the majority (66 percent) still look to real estate agents as the most important source of information and trust them to verify what they’re learning on ChatGPT, Claude or Google’s Gemini.
Inman went through product demos with each portal to better understand how their AI-powered search features work. Here’s a look at what those demos revealed about the journey portals are taking homebuyers through, from ChatGPT to their proprietary search platforms, and then, hopefully, into the hands of an agent.
