NAR’s AI Adoption Report: What Real Estate Agents Should Do Next

The latest National Association of Realtors® technology report points to a practical shift in real estate: agents are adopting technology less for novelty and more to recover time.

That matters because “use more AI” is not a useful business strategy by itself. The question for an agent is whether a specific tool can remove repetitive work without creating compliance, accuracy or client-trust problems.

The report’s clearest finding is that technology adoption is becoming tied to service capacity. Eighty-one percent of surveyed agents said saving time was a primary reason for adopting new technology, up from 66% the previous year. Seventy-one percent cited improving the client experience, up from 64%.

In other words, agents are not necessarily asking technology to replace relationships. They are asking it to make room for more of them.

AI is becoming routine—but mostly as a writing assistant

Nearly half of respondents said they use AI daily or weekly: 23% daily and 25% weekly. Only 12% said they are not using AI and have no plans to do so, compared with 32% in the prior survey.

The usage pattern is telling. Among agents using AI:

• 75% use it for listing descriptions.
• 56% use it for social media posts.
• 52% use it for emails and follow-ups.
• 27% use it to summarize documents.
• Only 11% use it for lead generation or prioritization.
• Fewer than 10% use it for forms, client-status automation or similar operational work.

This is less an AI revolution than a workflow upgrade. Most agents are using general-purpose tools for language tasks because those tasks are easy to review and relatively low-risk. A draft listing description can be edited before publication. A missed deadline or incorrect transaction update is much harder to repair.

The report also found that 55% of respondents viewed AI as having a positive impact on their business, but only 16% called the impact significantly positive. Another 34% said AI had no impact.

That should temper the hype. AI may be useful without being transformational.

What this means for your business

The report supports a narrow conclusion: agents should identify one repetitive workflow and test whether technology reduces the time required to complete it.

Do not begin by buying an expensive “AI-powered real estate platform” because the label sounds strategic. Start with the work that happens every week:

• Listing copy drafts and variations
• Open-house and market-update emails
• Social posts adapted from existing content
• Call-note or meeting summaries
• First-pass client FAQs
• Internal checklists and task handoffs

For many solo agents, a general AI assistant may be enough for the first four items. Your MLS, transaction-management system, e-signature platform and showing scheduler already handle much of the infrastructure work.

| Use case | Existing category | AI assistant’s role | Cost implication | |---|---|---|---| | Listing descriptions | MLS and marketing tools | Draft, shorten or adapt copy | Often included in a general AI subscription | | Contracts and forms | Transaction-management platform | Summarize or flag questions for review | Requires careful human and legal oversight | | Follow-up | CRM and email automation | Draft personalized messages | CRM subscription may cost more than AI | | Showing coordination | Showing scheduler | Limited support unless integrated | Keep the specialized tool as the system of record | | Lead prioritization | CRM, routing and analytics | Suggest next actions | Depends on the platform's integrations and data quality |

A general-purpose tool such as ChatGPT costs $20 per month for an individual Plus plan. Claude offers a Pro plan for $20 per month, subject to usage limits. Those subscriptions can be reasonable if they replace several hours of repetitive writing each month.

But the subscription is only the visible cost. Agents should also account for setup time, prompt development, review time, data-security policies and the risk of sending an inaccurate or inappropriate message to a client.

The cost question is bigger than the monthly bill

The report says 36% of respondents spent between $50 and $250 on technology for their individual business during the past 12 months. That suggests many agents remain cautious buyers, and understandably so.

A simple cost test is more useful than a feature checklist:

1. Estimate the hours a tool could realistically save each month.
2. Multiply those hours by the value of your working time.
3. Subtract the monthly subscription and a reasonable review burden.
4. Keep the tool only if the result is positive after 60 to 90 days.

For example, a $20 monthly AI subscription that saves two hours of low-value administrative work may pay for itself quickly. A $150 monthly platform that produces generic content but still requires extensive editing may not.

Teams should be more careful. A per-seat plan can multiply quickly, and an AI tool that creates inconsistent messaging across agents can increase brand and supervision work. Before rolling out a team-wide system, test it with a small group and define approved use cases.

Clients are receptive, but trust still has to be earned

Forty percent of agents said clients responded very positively to technology in the buying or selling process. Another 37% said clients found it helpful but had reservations.

That split is important. Clients generally appreciate faster responses, cleaner updates and easier scheduling. They may be less enthusiastic about obviously automated messages, unexplained data handling or advice that sounds confident but is wrong.

A useful client-facing standard is simple: use AI to prepare work, not to conceal responsibility. Agents should still personally verify:

• Property facts, measurements and feature claims
• Dates, deadlines and transaction status
• Market statistics and financial calculations
• Fair-housing-sensitive language
• Any communication involving legal or contractual interpretation

Do not paste confidential client information into a tool unless its terms, account settings and brokerage policy allow it. Also check whether your brokerage has an approved-tool list. The learning curve was the biggest adoption obstacle for 63% of respondents, while 59% cited cost. A basic written policy can address both concerns better than another software purchase.

Who should care—and who can ignore this report?

Agents should pay attention if they are spending significant time rewriting similar emails, creating property marketing from scratch or manually summarizing conversations. Teams with uneven follow-up habits may also benefit from structured automation.

Brokerages should care because the technology gap can become a service-consistency problem. Training agents on approved workflows may produce more value than simply licensing another platform.

You can mostly ignore the report for now if your current systems already handle your administrative workload, your pipeline is limited by lead volume rather than staff capacity, or you do not have time to review AI output carefully. Adoption for its own sake is not a business objective.

The practical next step is modest: choose one recurring task, measure how long it takes today, test one tool for a month and track the edited output. If the tool saves time while maintaining accuracy and your voice, keep it. If it creates more checking than doing, stop.

The report does not show that every agent needs more technology. It shows that agents increasingly expect technology to earn its place by giving time back—and clients will judge the result by whether service actually improves.