KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Beyond Content How Top Agents Use AI for Coding, Systems, and Problem-Solving

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

Summary:Ryan Bruin, a third-generation real estate agent and AI innovator, joins Kathy Burns to discuss moving beyond "basic" AI uses like content generation . Bruin shares how he uses Google’s Gemini to build custom internal CRMs and consumer-facing tools, emphasizing that agents should leverage tools they already pay for rather than chasing "magic bullet" subscriptions . The episode explores tactical applications, including using AI as a 24/7 business coach, a technical troubleshooter for household repairs, and a tool for extracting actionable insights from large batches of podcast transcripts .

I've given some speeches and classes about AI, and I say, you know, people say, what's my one, what's the one takeaway? And it's ask AI to do something that you don't think it can do. Everybody's asking to do things that they're expecting it to do and do well. And then they're disappointed because the result is not as good as they expected. I tell them, don't do that. Ask it to do something you don't think it can do. And then when it does it, then you're going to start getting ideas of what you can really use it for. Yeah. And that's what you just said, getting ideas. People are saying, well, it's, you're, you're, you know, stifling, no, it is expanding our mindset, don't you find?

No, yeah, absolutely. I think it still involves work. It doesn't do everything for you, but it's, I kind of think of it as like an Ironman suit. Everybody's Kathy Burns here with Real Estate Riches. And my guest today is Ryan Bruin, and he is in Morristown, that state. New Jersey. New Jersey. So I'm excited to have you on here.

You know, I think I'm pretty close to 100 episodes now. And the interesting thing about doing a podcast is all the different ways that people do a relationship business. And it's pretty exciting. So you want to tell us a little bit about you, your team, and how it all got started. Yeah, absolutely. I've been in the real estate business now myself for, I think about 13 years now. Prior to that, I worked as an accountant. But I have a lot of past experiences in film production, the music business.

construction, graphic design, all different types of backgrounds that have kind of culminated and things that I use now in my current career. I have a small team. I work with my parents who've both been in the real estate business for quite some time, and I'm a third generation in this business. My grandfather, Carlton, started out in the real estate business back in the 1950s. He had his own brokerage firm, which he then sold. which he then sold, which was then sold again, to where we are now at Coldwell Banker,

which we've been at for quite some time. Wow, that's great. I'm third generation as well. My grandfather was an attorney who became a developer, and I think that was in the 40s or 50s. And then my mom didn't become a realtor until she was in her late 40s, and I became one at 50, nearly 56. Yeah, I didn't want to do it. But I understand. I understand people assume my family brought me into the business. In fact, it was the opposite. I might have done that from the beginning. If it wasn't for them, I was trying to avoid it as much as I like the business. I was trying to avoid it for quite some time because why would I want to do what they do?

Well, yeah. And who knew, you know, it's a lot of work. And people think, people get into this right and left who come in and just think it's a cakewalk. It is far from it. No, it's a lot of work. But actually, I like the way, I like the current real estate market and the way the business operates now more than it did when I was growing up and watching them operating it. I'm not saying I wouldn't have enjoyed it then, but I think it's a different, much different business now than it was then. And for me, the current way the business operates is a much better fit.

Yeah. And I want to, we'll come to that too, because I really want to talk about how efficiently you run your business. And I think that's part of your CPA background, because you know, you need systems, you need order. I'm all about efficiencies and processes. I'm a lunatic with it. Yeah. That is not my strength.

So I wish it was. But I did securities for 23 years. And so both all those different fields that you just mentioned are really important in the industry that you're in. Because the marketing piece of it that you did with the entertainment, all of that comes. into play because you have to be a marketing person here in this business. Oh yeah, there's film production, storytelling, you know, just understanding how people consume media in that shell is important. So important.

And then for me, the crunching of the numbers, also the sales skills of being in the business, you know, that really transferred really well for me to figure out, evaluate what was going to be my niche, what was going to be my net that I was looking for, how I would target market, who my people were going to be because I started dead broke in a brand new so I'm like yeah you're running a business and a lot of people understand that and they listen to their brokers who are very well-meaning but they care about your top line number not your bottom line number that's exactly right that's exactly right and so and I see that you've incorporated AI into your business want to tell us about that oh man it's funny because I've gotten asked a lot about it especially since a lot of the

attention I've gotten recently. I was, when was that back in September? I presented in Las Vegas at Cobble Bankers Global Convention as one of the five AI innovator finalists. I've been presenting to a few different regions for a couple of banker as well on AI. But every time I get asked the question of how I'm using AI in my business, the answer is different because it's evolving so much. And I also am learning so much and implementing it much so many more ways. now than initially started. And I think I'm using a little bit different. I think, well, I'm using a lot of the same ways that other realtors are in terms of

helping to generate content and ideas and video editing and image editing and all that stuff. But I think that's kind of basic. It is. I think where I really, I think I'm outside of the norm for, at least for my business, is I'm using it a lot for coding. I've not only built out some consumer-facing products and tools. I built a custom website, but within that, I built a lot of tools that my customers and clients can use. But on top of that, I've built a lot of internal systems where, you know, real estate agents love to run around.

What CRM are you using? What transaction management software are using? And at the end of the day, unless you're going to pay big bucks for a completely custom one, you're going to have things about everything you don't like. And I said, you know what? I'm sick of that. So I'm just going to build my own systems. Very good. What platform did you do that on?

So I hate that question, and I'll tell you why. I used Gemini from Google's AI system. But the reason I hate that question is because I think everybody, when they ask that, they're looking for a magic bullet. And I tell them, I'm not saying all the AI tools out there are good. But the reason I use that is because it's included in my Google Business Suite that I'm already paying for. I think you've got a lot of people running around looking for the best. best AI tool and then doing nothing with it. Yeah. There is no, I don't think there is any best.

I use many. I thought you might tell me you did that in lovable because of the vibe coding. No, I definitely, you know, I utilize vibe coding, but you know, my take is before I go up buying things, let's see if I can do it to my satisfaction in the tools and programs that I'm already you paying for. Yeah. I find if you talked if you talk to agents now about AI, they're going from class to class. They ask the instructor what their favorite AI tool is. They pay for the pro version and now they're walking around with a bunch of subscriptions that they're doing nothing with. You know, that's really valid, Ryan, because I tell, I teach it and I tell, I tell, I tell agents do not pay for this. Definitely don't do the year-long thing. If you're going to, if you have

to pay something, you want to try it out, get the free that's going to give you at least 14 days or maybe 30 days and see what it does. But figure out what is it that you want to do with it, right? Right. And get started. Maybe you don't pay for one and you use a very basic one to get started out. And then once you hit your limits and it's not serving you anymore and you start getting comfortable with AI, then you can start paying for some premium one. Well, and the other thing is each one of those platforms just keep changing. Well, that's the other funny thing. Even if I could tell you what the best one is today, tomorrow it could be different. Great. So I had heard about lovable, I think about eight months ago. And I didn't know what the heck it was. And I could start

for free. That's how I start. And so I said, what can you do for me? And it started to tell me some things that I could do. I said, there's your key. Yes. Many people ask me what, what, how do I do that? Ask it. Ask it. And I learned that a ways back. I've been doing it. I've been doing it. nearly three years now and I just, I'm addicted. So I said, you know, what can I do? And they said, well, you could create an app about something. I said, well, how would I possibly create an app? You know, because tell me, I said, and everything you teach me, I want you to teach me at a fifth grade level. So you're getting me step by step by step. Because even is it on the left side of the page that I look or the right or down? Because don't start talking gibberish to me. I need to be

talked to real basic. Right. Real basic. And I sometimes you know. even need to tell you what to do it just does it there's plenty of times where it says all right here do this and i'll just say can you do that here's the information that you want me to input can you just do it for me and it'll say all right see i didn't know that jemini could do that uh i i'm yeah i'm excited i call canvas is their oh yeah oh yeah because canvas you're right that is the coding piece oh my god light bulb just went on and that's inside chat chachy t too i just thought it was an annoying thing on the one side the page. But that's why, what do you know?

I've been doing some speeches and classes about AI and I say, you know, people say, what's my one, what's the one takeaway? And it's ask AI to do something that you don't think it can do. Everybody's asking to do things that they're expecting it to do and do well. And then they're disappointed because the result is not as good as they expected. I tell them, don't do that. Ask it to do something you don't think it can do. And then when it does it, then you're going to start getting ideas of what you can

really use it for. Yeah, you know, and that's what you just said, getting ideas. People are saying, well, it's, you know, stifling. No, it is expanding our mindset, don't you find? No, yeah, absolutely. I think it still involves work. It doesn't do everything for you, but it's, I kind of think of it as like an Ironman suit. It's like, you know, it doesn't do it for you, but it makes you capable of doing anything.

Yes. Well, it makes you just think bigger. You start, oh, my gosh, I could do this. Let's try that. And I'm so addictive. to it. People say, all you do is talk about AI. I said, I can't. I know. I love you for it or they hate you. They're all I want to just talk to you about it or they don't want to talk to you because that's all you talk. Yeah, because I find it extremely addictive. Oh, yeah. This morning, I saw how you

could go to Notebook LM. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Well, you should because that's Google too, right? So I go to notebook LM. I had downloaded the extension for Notebook LM in Chrome. and then you can go to a YouTube channel where there's something that somebody's talking about and create a new notebook and you hit where it'll say transcript up on the right and you just hit transcript grabs it in less than a nanosecond and so now I'll say I just said could you make me a slide presentation based on the summary of that YouTube because it could be mine or whatever and I want the context of what you're teaching in that YouTube channel and And I just did a 10 slide presentation about how to be found on AI.

Pretty exciting. I know. Yeah. See? I know what you're thinking. Yeah. I'll go check that right. Well, I just even dig a step further.

It's not to not to assert your class, but have AI, you know, do it for you. You know, everything I do, I pop into AI. Oh, yeah. Can you make this optimized for SEO and AEO and lead conversion? Oh, see. I love how you talk. You get me. No one else.

I keep looking. Who in here knows to how to talk AI? Yeah. Or like, all right, I have an idea. Let's ask it to build that for me. Okay, it built that for me. Now before I say, good, it did exactly what I wanted to. Now that I'm done, say, okay, now that you've built me what I wanted, what could I

add or improve about this? Yes. Keep going. Yeah. Now that I'm done. Like, all right, you've built my website. You helped me build my website. exactly how I want it. Now looking at the whole thing, what could you improve?

Yes. I love that question. Yeah, there's different people I follow and I'm grabbing their prompts and different ideas and just kind of putting them all in my Google Drive heading with the heading. And because when when chat came out with how it could search your Google Drive, because I'm chaotic over there. I'm not organized like you. And it just pulled up something that I was trying to find out. And I thought, well, if I was over here and Gemini. I got the calendar. I got my contacts. I got it all. I'm like, I think I'm going to move that over to that. So that's what's happening. You know, I'm not staying in one place. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't pay for Gemini. It takes some sort of motivation to get me to try out

something new just because, you know, like I started doing a lot of videos with SORA because I was doing videos in V-O-3, which is Google's because I said, I'm already paying for this. And it's great. It really is good. And then someone gave me a free code to SORA. I'm like, this is great. I don't even, why I set this up? I've got what I'm working with. And then one day I hit my daily limit on the videos with V-O-3.

And I said, well, let me try Sora because I don't want to stop. And then I'm like, ooh, I actually really like this for these types of videos better. Yes. Like V-O-3 is great for this stuff. But, you know, V-O-3 is great for when you tell it exactly what to do. Sora is good for, you can give it a general idea. and it comes up with the stuff for you. Yeah, I love SORA.

And I think there is an AI platform, which I think I just paid for, which is Higgins, Higg, Higgby, Higgs, Higgsfield. So it has SORA in it without the logos. Without the, yeah. Yeah. Personally, I like having the watermark SOROGO because I, you know, the content way I'm using my content,

it's like I'm not trying to pretend it's real. Right. I like that it shows that it's AI. It's like, here's my legal disclaimer. This is AI. Oh, well, that's valid. That's valid. I do a lot of things around the world where, because I do outgoing high net worth referrals to places like Portugal and Dubai and stuff like that. So friends of mine had some equestrian estates in Portugal. And so I was on Sora and I prompted it. I said, and I gave it my picture. And I said, imagine me. me walking through a quest of an estate in Portugal and it's a gorgeous estate. And I'm just walking down. You can see all the estate and me walking by. And so it did an incredible thing.

Now, with Sora, you had to give some numbers and some words. The problem was it kept keeping that in there. Yeah, I try to avoid text. Yes. It messes it up. It does. And so anyway, then I had talked over it. It was working.

And so it didn't. incredible video and because it was 10 seconds and then I did the whole content because I did it in a real. So now they're watching it over and over again to read what I'd done in the content part of it. And I got so much traction on that. And I looked darn good. It was much more fit in that and younger. I like it. I have young kids so I can record videos while I'm laying in their bed trying to wait from them to fall asleep.

That's a great idea. I don't mind getting in front of the camera, but there's certain scenarios. where I've got the time and I don't have the ability to get in front of the camera. Yeah. Well, I'm in the process now of creating my AI twin so that I can do a lot more content. I do a lot of content as it is, but there's and I have AI help me with every single thing that I do. Oh yeah. I usually give it the context of what I want and then I have it reframe it or there's some things I have it do for me or help me do and then the other stuff it's I do it without AI but then I just pop it in before for a critique yes one thing that I did this year that

was really cool I used that notebook LM to extract 47 podcasts that I had done I wanted the content of it all so now it has it and it's all in it was in Gemini and I said okay I want you to tell me what what was our conversations like this past year what was the trend what were you seeing with different realtors who were challenged in the market. What were you seeing about AI? What were you seeing about their vision next year? What were some unique things that they did within their own business? It created the most amazing article for me, because I do a lot of LinkedIn. And I said, wow. And then I said, well, I need a picture. And I thought, well, I've got one where I'm talking like into a mic. And I said, take the background

out of that. Give me a 10 because I'm pretty pale in that picture. And I said, and put my real estate Rich's logo behind it. It turned out great. I was so freaking excited about that. And I did that in Nanobanana. Yeah, yeah. That's really helpful. And I really like now, I've been for a big Adobe Photoshop user for a long time. And now they came out, I think it was maybe six, 12 months ago, their AI, generative AI. And then a few months ago, they came out with an integration of Nanobanana, Google's Nanobanana in Photoshop. So now it's high resolution, commercially safe content with no watermarks. So you pay for that, though, right?

I pay for Photoshop. It's included in. So if you have Adobe Photoshop, it's, you know, with the current version, it's part of it. And you don't need a Gemini subscription in order to utilize it. Oh, okay, good. That's good to know. If you have Adobe Photoshop, it's in there. And there's no subscription to that feature.

It's part of it. Okay. Yeah. It's, wait, Adobe Photoshop is part of Gemini? No, Adobe Photoshop has this Gemini, nano banana integration now in Photoshop. And you do not need to have a current subscription to Gemini in order to utilize that feature within Photoshop. Great. So how many subscriptions will you think you have?

Not that many. I try to keep it low. I've got Adobe Photoshop, which I've been used to be. Like, you know, I've been using that for ages. I can't get rid of that. Well, that's Adobe. It can lose Photoshop, Premiere Pro, some other programs as well. I have Google Business Suite, which I've also had for a very long time because I was using

that for my email, my calendar, my spreadsheets and documents. And now that includes Gemini and all those different Gemini programs. I have SORA. I'm not paying for SORA. Yeah, it's free. Yeah, it's free. I've got the referral code for that. That's probably it.

So you don't have chat. You don't need it. No. Yeah. No. I figure, that's the other thing. Especially when I was speaking with a bunch of realtors. I'm like, guys, you don't need the best of everything.

Nope. You know, yeah, we're doing, you can do some complex stuff for our business, but like, we're not, we're not sending a rocket to the moon here. Like, pick one that does a lot of things you want, you know, that you like, that you think it does a good job and use it. You don't need to be subscribing to every little thing. Oh, God. No, you'll go broke. And that's, that's, most realtors grab every shiny piece. Well, I always say it's like going to the gym in January.

Yeah. You know, you know it's easier than getting into shape, joining the gym. You join the gym because then you did something. You can go outside and go for a run right now, but that's, it's easier to just swipe your credit card at the gym and then you've already taken a step towards getting to shape. You can say you're doing something. Yeah, very exciting. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I love all this because, well, you and I speak the same thing. Don't you think that this is critical in your business today? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's so critical, you know, for two reasons. Efficiency, the amount of time and money that you save in, you know, operational efficiency. But then also everybody's got their coaches and their trainers and whatnot. And, you know, if you're not using AI, you don't have the best coaches and trainers out there. And you literally have them every step of the way. Everything I do, I can say, hey, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? You know, even if you've got a great coach or manager, you're not, you know, call in or text

them 80 times a day and saying, how about this, how about that. All right, you told me how to do that. Now I did it. Now, what do you think? Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Now, let's touch on that, the hallucinations. What's that? Hallucinations, how it lies. How it lies. What are you talking about? You haven't heard that phrase, hallucination? No, no. Okay, well, especially chat GPT. I don't know.

You're talking about like when it makes up fake stuff? It makes up fake stuff. Yeah. They both do because Gemini has lied to me too. So I want the sources of everything that it does. I don't use it a whole lot for data. I don't use it for pulling. Yeah, I don't use it a whole lot for pulling data.

I think if you're going to pull data, like a notebook LM is great. If you're like, here's a bunch of data, you calculate it. Or if you're using it to calculate it to calculate it. calculate and manage data that you have already. But I've had a few times where I've relied in it, well, not rely on it, where I've tried it for like, hey, get me information on this or that. And it hasn't been as reliable. So I'd say for people, if you're going to do that, double check everything.

But I've kind of been steering clear from it. You know, I'll use it for like certain information. But like, I one time I thought I'd be smart. I'm on the way to an appointment and meet with a seller. And I said, all right, I'm going to this address. tell me everything I need to know about this property and ownership history and stuff. And it was all wrong. So things like that, I don't necessarily rely on it.

But it's, hey, if I pulled a bunch of information and I want to pop it in and say, hey, summarize this for me, give me key points, put it into a presentation, things like that. You know, that I found it be very reliable. But even then, you've got to proofread and double check. When I used to build a website, then I go and test out the website, test out every piece of it. You can't just, you got to do a final check on everything. Yeah. Yeah.

I totally agree. Well, I had, I have it do a lot of stuff for me where I, like I use the app on the chat GPT, where it's got the camera and you talk, literally talking back and forth. It talks to me and I talk. Oh, yeah. So. Yeah, I use that with Gemini all the time. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's good to know too.

So my garage door would not close. And I have classic cars inside my garage. and I'm like, we've got to get this garage door closed. We're going to figure this out here, buddy. So I get out my app and I'm taking a picture. I'm pushing the button. I'm doing the code. I'm saying, see the light flashing in there.

You know, the car's not doing it. What's causing this to not close? I got to get the car door closed. And I didn't want to spend the $350 to call a garage guy out, right? I have young kids. I use it for them all the time. See? Like, my daughter is very curious.

So she's just asked me a question. question after question. And I'm like, come on. And I'm like, you know what? Now I just give it to her. I'm like, here. And it asks her question. Because I'll answer a question. And there's a follow-up question. Sure. How many days until my birthday? Five, you know, 58 days. How many is 58? It's 58. What do you mean how many is 58? You know? And but then you, I've got no answer. And then I go into that. And I say, can you explain to my six-year-old daughter how many days, 58 days is? And it'll give us. some like explanation that sounds completely ludicrous and then she'll look at me like okay that that that that i guess that's how you describe how many days 58 days is to someone who doesn't understand

how long a day is wow that's fun yeah i love that piece of it i just find so many ways to use it honestly i'd be kind of lost without it because yeah and when i interview like a lot of times when i connect with agents on Facebook, I'll say, are you using AI? And they'll say no. And I'm like, no. Because in my mind, it's detrimental to your career if you're not. Yeah, you don't have to be going crazy with it. But nowadays, if you're not using AI, then you're just not trying to trying to try. You're not trying to improve. Like, that's the best tool out there right now. If you're not using that, then are you really committed to improving your business, giving your clients the best service? Like, if you're not using the best tools, then would, you

know, are you really committed to being the best you can? Well, and the other thing is, let's say I'm not and you are and we're in competition and you come in strong with all the nuances that you were able to create or even how you attracted them with your website and how you follow up your systems and I come in and I'm so old school. Who are they picking? They're picking you. Yeah.

You're going to get the house done. You're going to get the house sold. Even if it was a buyer, you're going to be the one. So this is so important people. I want you listening to this. And I come across agents who are like, oh, well, it's all in my head. I have a really good memory. And I say, all right, number one, if it's all in your head and it's working, you're not doing

that much business. And, you know, so number one, you're not doing that much business. I don't care how smart you are, how good a memory you are. At some point, you're going to get to a point. Either you're going to not improve and then, well, that's your own problem. Or you're going to get to a point where it doesn't matter how smart you are and how good memory you have, it's going to be too much to process and keep track of and manage. And so by that point, you're stuck. You need to have systems in place.

And burnout. Burn out. And burn out. And listen, even the best make mistakes, you need to have systems in place to help avoid those. Yes. Every time something goes wrong in a transaction, that is the catalyst for a new system or process within my business to keep it. Yes. We're not doing that again. Like, what is one of the reasons you hire professionals because they have the experience. Well, if they're not using that experience to build upon making your experience better, then what does that experience, how does that experience benefit you? Yeah, I totally agree. I tell different agents, like I have an organization around the country, and I say to them,

I go, well, I really don't think we need to bring it into my business. I said, okay, if we're in competition on a listing, I'm going to tell you one thing. I'm going to blow you right out of the water from my confidence alone. what I know that I can do and you can't do. And it's going to come across because I'm going to feel really good about it and you're going to do the best you can with what little that you're doing. But man, I'm coming in hot and you're going with me. Absolutely.

So be that person is basically the point. Be that person. Have that confidence. You better. Be better. Yeah. You're not the best. Then get better.

Yeah. I love it. Well, this has been great. Any last little tidbits you want to share? Not really. I mean, it's a lot about AI, but at the end of the day, it's not about AI. It's being committed to learning new things and improving your business and expanding your knowledge and expertise. Yeah. Key thing there is it's your business, run it like a business.

Yeah. Yeah. This has been great- For yourself, for your clients. If you're going to go out and convince them that you're the best person to help them, well then, you know, be genuine and make sure you're the best person to help them. Yeah, totally agree. Thanks so much for being on you today. I appreciate it. Of course, my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

All right. Well, that was it for today. And I hope you enjoyed it. All Ryan's information will be in the description below. You'll be able to reach out to him over in New Jersey. And if you need me, you can always reach me. All my stuff's right here. Thanks so much, everybody. Let's book a strategy call and let's have a talk. No pressure. But man, it's worth a conversation. The links in the description.