Updated 20 September 2026: first published on Elite Agent in May 2025. The article has been refreshed as an AI basics guide to checking your public online profile with AI.
You can have an AI account, a folder full of saved prompts and plenty of good intentions, and still wonder what to do first.
The useful move is to choose one problem worth testing. For a real estate agent, a manageable starting point is checking what a prospective client can find about you online.
This exercise produces something concrete to review: a sourced summary, a list of gaps and one improvement you can make. It also teaches a habit that matters in every AI task: checking the answer against the evidence.
What is a useful first AI task for a real estate agent?
Imagine a homeowner is deciding whom to contact. Can they establish where you work, what you do and how to get in touch? Can they find examples that support your claims?
Use a tool with web research, or provide public links yourself. Ask a trusted colleague to try the exercise too; a fresh perspective can help when your usual AI conversations already contain a lot of information about you.
If you want a structured starting point, try the Elite Agent Brand Quiz. It is a self-assessment based on your answers. The separate research exercise below examines public sources. Neither should be treated as a compliance audit or a measure of your professional ability.
Give the tool a clear research brief
Research [AGENT NAME] at [AGENCY] in [AREA] using public web sources, as if I were a homeowner deciding whether to contact them.
First confirm you have the right person. If the identity is unclear, ask me rather than merging information about different people.
Look for evidence of local experience, relevant recent work, client reviews and how the agent explains their service. Link each source and note its date where available. Separate the agent’s own claims from independent sources.
Summarise what a prospective client could learn, what is unclear or missing, and three questions they might ask. Distinguish established facts from interpretation. Do not invent sales figures, rankings or performance measures.
If you cannot browse, say so and ask me for source material. Do not pretend to have searched. Missing information in your results does not prove it does not exist.
Finish by suggesting one improvement to the clarity or accuracy of the agent’s public information. This is an information-checking exercise, not a verdict on the agent’s ability.How do I know whether the answer is any good?
Open the links. Check that the model has found you, rather than someone with a similar name. Look for an old agency profile, an out-of-date biography or a claim repeated across several sites from the same original source.
A useful answer makes its gaps visible. “I could not establish the date of this result” is more helpful than an invented explanation.
Also compare the answer with what you know is publicly available. If it missed a case study, that is a reason to investigate how the information is presented and found. It does not establish that nobody can find it or that you are being excluded from every AI search.
Finish with one change you can check
You might update an old contact detail, clarify the area you serve or improve a case study so that it explains your actual contribution. Choose a change you control, record what you changed and set a date to review it.
Keep the original research response and its sources. If you repeat the exercise later, note the tool, date and prompt because results can vary. This is a learning task, not a promise of better rankings or more enquiries.
The original article also included the robot demonstration below. It remains as a historical illustration of the wider AI conversation; it is not evidence about what your agency tools can do today.
Start with a useful question, check the evidence and finish one improvement. That is enough for a first practical AI session.
The original version appeared in Samantha McLean’s AI Powered Agents newsletter. Read the refreshed source article on AI Powered Real Estate by Samantha McLean on Substack.