The day will eventually come when AI will replace creatives across all industries, including property. But today is not that day.

To anyone who lived through the '90s wave of mass internet adoption, the emergence of AI will feel familiar.

An exciting, genuinely groundbreaking technology emerges into the mainstream, followed by a frenzy of deployment, often with little thought as to whether it's yet a proper, productive solution.

Right now, AI is in what the Gartner Hype Cycle calls the 'Peak of Inflated Expectations' stage.

Take perhaps the most eyecatching potential application of AI. The replacement of human creatives with automated processes, with results that are already sharply dividing critics.

At Homewords, one of a relatively small number of dedicated property copywriting agencies, we're excited. But not because we're going to replace our writers with chatbots.

AI and its attendant hype is focusing minds on the power of the written word, and bringing creative descriptions back to the heart of the property marketing mix.

But as yet the tech is simply not able to make good on the hype, and deliver the same standards of quality and convenience as living, breathing, creative copywriters.

PERSONALISED, BUT NOT PERSONAL

This is a weakness that's particularly obvious when it comes to the face-to-face relationships that lie at the heart of the residential property market.

A carefully crafted, bespoke description of a property, and the location, amenities and lifestyle that go with it, is one of your most powerful tools for demonstrating to a vendor how much you care about their most valuable asset.

It shows you appreciate and understand the property, its highlights, priorities and strengths. A formulaic listing created by an automatic word generator will demonstrate the complete opposite.

NEW, BUT NOT ORIGINAL

At first glance property copywriting, with large amounts of copy produced within an ultimately limited range of variations, seems the perfect candidate for automation. A bit of examination reveals that the opposite is true.

With so few available points of difference to divide you from your competitors, you need every ounce of original, human creativity you can find.  Especially when you need to look each and every one of your clients in the eye.

Again, that kind of innovative diversity is the complete opposite of what a Large Language Model working exclusively from existing material can deliver.

SAVES TIME, BUT NOT ENOUGH

Most estate agents don't want to spend time writing listings. They want to win new instructions and close on the ones they have.

Again, on the face of it this makes AI a perfect fit. Brief Chat-GPT, let it go and you never have to write a listing ever again. Except as anyone who's tried it knows, it's not that simple.

After establishing and refining your brand's tone of voice in the first place, there's constant polishing necessary in response to vendor feedback, the changing local landscape, new design trends, market conditions and all sorts of other factors.

All this constant, organic development and feedback response comes naturally to professional writers.

THE HUMAN BEINGS FOR THE JOB

Homewords offer all of AI's promised efficiencies with none of the pitfalls, and at a fixed, per-instruction rate that you'll barely notice on the commission breakdown.

And right now it doesn't cost anything to give us a try. Contact david@homewords.co.uk for a free consultation and a week's free service.

Your clients deserve a masterpiece. Let us write a success story for every home.