The American Dream used to be about buying a home. But with corporations buying up homes and wages stagnating, the new American Dream is scrolling through Zillow and dreaming about what it would have been like if you’d been born rich. To that end, Zillow has stepped up its AI game to make it easier for you to find the dream home you can never afford.
The popular real estate marketplace integrated some AI tools into its search functionality last year, but recently released a pretty big software update that gives it even more options: Users can now use natural language to search for homes and rentals based on commute time and distance from schools and other points of interest.
Before conversational AI, you would have to use filters to find listings for the right address. Now, you can just type in “houses 20 minutes drive from Red Hook” and get some relevant listings. This should also be useful in areas with popular destinations. For example, you can just type in “houses near Mall of America” instead of having to go through all the listings in the Minneapolis neighborhood.
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With today’s update, our AI algorithm can now search by cost, and you can add an asking price to your query. Our AI-enhanced search already includes options to search for homes by their ideal layout, location, style, and condition. What’s new is around money and commute.
Like all things AI, Zillow’s tools are still in development; as you use them, they’ll be trained to “better respond” to search queries with natural, human-like sentences. Beware of hallucinations, too; if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Either way, the update is rolling out to its iOS and Android apps now, with website support coming soon.
The platform has never been shy about incorporating technology into its feature set, introducing 3D virtual home tours a few years ago and more recently integrating with FaceTime’s SharePlay feature to enable co-browsing.
