2025 is 87% over, and I’ve spent most of it doing something I haven’t done in years: writing less, speaking more, and quietly building something in the background.
That something is Ailsa – an AI journalist who interviews agents about their sales and writes publishable stories for Elite Agent.
But this piece isn’t really about Ailsa. It’s about what I learned while building her – and why most agents are missing the real opportunity with AI.
The Pattern I Keep Seeing
I’ve been criss-crossing the country this year delivering keynotes and training.
And at every event, more hands go up when I ask, “Who’s using ChatGPT?” More people tell me they’re using it at an advanced level.
But here’s what I’ve noticed: they’re using AI to do the same stuff they were always doing. Just faster.
“I need to write a letterbox drop – let’s get ChatGPT to do it.” “I need to write an email sequence – let’s ask Claude.” “I need to create social posts – let’s prompt for captions.”
And look, I’m not saying that’s bad. Playing and experimenting are essential. But it’s not the real opportunity.
The real opportunity is asking a completely different question: What could I build now that I couldn’t build before?
How I Stumbled Into This
For ten years, agents have emailed Elite Agent asking us to write about them. For ten years, we’ve said some version of “We’d love to, but with what resources?”
The economics never worked. A journalist’s time, an editor’s time, fact-checking, proofing – it only made sense for stories that would bring significant traffic.
Your excellent $1.5 million off-market sale in five days? Amazing work. Not newsworthy.
But this year, something clicked for me. Not “How do we publish more stories with the same resources?” but “If we were building Elite Agent today, how would we do it?”
That’s AI-first thinking.
And so Claude (the LLM) and I built Ailsa together.
I learned N8N (automation workflows) with AI’s help.
Learned conversational AI through YouTube and Notebook LM. I’m even doing a course on vibe-coding.
And look, I am probably what most people would call ‘busy’. I’ve worked some really long hours this year, speaking, training, and running around the country.
If I can do that, what can you do?
Why This Matters Now
Here’s what changed while we were all busy: consumers started researching agents through AI before ever contacting them.
Caloundra Agent Amy Bennett posted on Instagram about a listing presentation where her client handed her a printed document. About Her. That the client had pulled from ChatGPT, from the looks of her social post, it seemed rather comprehensive.
Your reputation is being filtered through AI before clients ever click through to your website. And most agents have no idea it’s happening, let alone how to influence what gets said.
I figured this out by accident. I customise every keynote for the group or the location. For example, if I’m in Byron Bay, I’ll search “who’s the best real estate agent in Byron Bay” in ChatGPT to make examples relevant.
And I started noticing Elite Agent articles kept appearing. If we’d written about an agent, that’s what the AI surfaced, along with their Substack, their social presence, and other credible sources.
That’s when it hit me: we weren’t just publishing stories. We were creating the citations that AI systems use in the future.
The Solar Panel App (And What Vibe Coding Actually Means)
I just recorded a podcast with Ben White – you’ll see it come Christmas. Mid-conversation, we talked about a news story about solar panels and property values.
And we thought: what if we could calculate the ROI instantly?
So we vibe-coded a little app. Right there. During the podcast.
That’s the energy I want you to catch in 2026. Not “I need to hire a developer” or “That’s too hard.” But “What if we just… tried?”
What AI-First Actually Means (And What It Doesn’t)
Here’s what AI-first thinking is NOT: lazily handing everything off to AI.
It’s not about automation for the sake of automation.
It’s not about replacing human judgment or taste.
As Dom Thurbon said: “The biggest enemy of doing things better is being wedded to the way you used to do things.”
AI-first means asking: If I had these tools available, how would I do this from scratch?
For Elite Agent, it means we can now finally say yes to profiling agents at scale. Ailsa interviews you (she’s a conversational AI, she asks follow-up questions), gathers context, checks recent data on the web, writes a draft, and sends it to our human editors.
While many folks are wondering how AI can or will replace people, we’re not thinking that at all. We want to keep our people and enable them to do exponentially more.
For agents using Ailsa, it means authority content created from a credible industry source, where you only need to make a five-minute phone call after your auction or when the deal is done.
This becomes content you can share and repurpose in your newsletter and across your socials, which compounds over time.
The Opportunities I’m Seeing
Ailsa is one thing. But I’m seeing so many other opportunities now. Different ways Ailsa could evolve. Different tools we could build. Different problems we could solve.
Because once you start thinking AI-first – not “how do I do the same thing only faster?” but “what becomes possible now?” – everything looks different.
There’s a 91-year-old Grandpa in the US who taught himself to vibe code and created an app for his church. If he can do that, what can you do?
Get On the Road (Whenever You’re Ready)
Serhant’s Chief Experience Officer Coyne said on the podcast: “Society moves forward one graveyard at a time.”
He wasn’t being pessimistic. He was saying you can get on the AI road whenever you choose.
Some agents will spend thousands of hours, like I have, learning and experimenting.
Others will use tools like Ailsa: make the call, get the content, move on.
Both paths are valid. At some point, you need to get on the road.
Because real estate has been an echo chamber for too long. Everyone watching everyone else, making slight variations, staying safe.
The agents who break out – who find that thing that makes them genuinely great instead of just good – are the ones willing to ask different questions.
Not “How do I use AI to write my letterbox drop?”
But “What can I build now that I couldn’t build before?”
Happy hunting 🚀
