KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Is AI Replacing You? eXp Founder Glenn Sanford’s Future Vision of AI Powered Agents

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Summary:In this episode of Real Estate On Air Live, we sit down with Glenn Sanford, the visionary founder of eXp Realty, to discuss the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence in real estate. Glenn pulls back the curtain on how he used AI to build a custom community platform in just one month and shares why agents who embrace AI will outpace the competition. Whether you are curious about AI-driven lead generation, building bespoke consumer experiences, or using technology to streamline inspection reports, this conversation provides a roadmap for thriving in the 2026 real estate market and beyond. What You’ll LearnThe Power of the First Prompt: Discover why the biggest opportunity in AI starts with simply asking the right questions, and how new tools like the ChatGPT Atlas browser are becoming gateways to automated CRM management. [00:01:05] Building Custom Apps in Minutes: How Glenn built a functional platform that reads inspection reports and estimates repair costs in just 30 minutes using only eight prompts. [00:03:28] The Evolution of AI Models: A look at the transition from "novelty" tasks like writing poems to the "beast" that is GPT-5, which acts as a true intellectual thought partner. [00:06:42] Replacing Major Software with AI: The story of how Glenn replaced a major community platform by building "Hub" for eXp Realty without writing a single line of code. [00:12:53] Why AI Won't Replace the Human Agent: Glenn explains why "human experiences" and personal connections like door-knocking remain safe from automation, provided agents use AI to enhance their value proposition. [00:14:39] Episode Breakdown[00:00:00] – Introduction of Guest: Glenn Sanford, Founder of eXp Realty. [00:00:36] – The shift in real estate leadership and the AI Accelerator series. [00:01:32] – Introduction to the ChatGPT Atlas browser and the future of automated "acting on your behalf." [00:03:28] – Live Case Study: Building an inspection report analysis app at eXp Con. [00:04:24] – How AI-informed data changes the dynamic of real estate negotiations. [00:06:13] – Timeline of AI development: From the "Napster Era" to GPT-5. [00:07:45] – The simplified future: Using AI to build CRMs and community websites in months. [00:10:22] – Discussion on scaling eXp Realty smarter and the cost of traditional development. [00:11:49] – Solving the "Community" problem: Moving from Slack to a custom-built AI solution. [00:14:39] – Addressing agent fears: Will AI replace the real estate professional? [00:17:27] – Final thoughts: The risks of "fearful avoidance" vs. the benefits of bespoke consumer experiences. [00:18:51] – Closing remarks and outro. 

This is KGCII Real Estate On Air Live, your weekly deep dive into the strategies, trends, and tools shaping the real estate industry, from market updates to actionable strategies and strategies and exclusive interviews. with top agents, we are here to unlock your full potential and help you thrive. Thousands of agents trust KGCI every week. Now it's your turn. Let's go live. Here's Ian Wheatley. Hey, good morning. I'm hoping that you're not sitting in a driveway right now hiding out from extended family

scrolling through your inbox and wondering if 2026 is actually going to be that year, you finally get off the production roller coaster because I know, I know. It's the holidays you're supposed to be off right now. And you think that you can't sharpen that axe without ruining your vacation. Well, here's the truth. The agent who checks out in December, they spend all in January just trying to find their pulse. And if you don't have a data-driven strategy by the time the ball drops on New Year's, the reality is you're already behind.

So that is what we're going to do here today on Real Estate on Air Live. We're just going to give you a 2026 blueprint from the Fed's latest moves to a high-level session with ExP Realty founder Glenn Sanford. on dominating with AI, all right? You can't miss a second. And if you do get interrupted by dinner, make sure you take us with you. Open up the KGCI Real Estate on Air mobile app

or just search us on Apple Podcasts. That's just searching KGCI like K, gross commission income, all right? Hit subscribe and own your education on the go. I'm Ian Wheatley. This is Real Estate on Air Live and right now it's time for housing headlines. 2025 and getting ready for what could be a massive shift in the real estate landscape into next year.

And I know the gurus have been saying that for like three years down. But bear with me. We'll look at some data for the Federal Reserve, the National Association of Realtors, and the latest market research. So we can at least start building some game plan as we had into 2026. Now, the economic landscape, that all starts with the Federal Reserve. Okay. We recently saw a rate cut that analysts have been calling hawkish. And Chairman Powell is signaling that the current strategy is likely going to include

two more rate cuts through next year. But here's the reality check. Powell didn't know that lower rates are not going to solve a housing shortage, which currently sits at four million units nationwide. Now, there is a buyer paradox in this as well, right? Because while borrowing costs may go down, inflation at the grocery store, that remains sticky, and that creates a bit of a paradox. Expect your 2026 buyers to be driven by logic and their pocketbook.

Not so much by emotion, okay? Because there are going to be some new market profiles that start to emerge next year. You need to watch for the rise of what they're calling the Alice household. Not my daughter. It's an acronym. It's asset limited, income constrained, but employed. Alice. These are far from individuals who are sitting in poverty and they are well above that poverty line.

federal poverty level, but they're locked out of the housing market by student loans, high debt, and other things, right? So we are also seeing a rise in those delisted properties as we're heading into the new year, right? Sellers are pulling homes off the market when they realize they can't quite get that 2023 price. And so the action plan here is your tactical play, right? Data from NAR highlighting that homeowners who purchase between 2018 and 2020 are sending on whether they realize it or not, life-changing equity. If you haven't lately, run your local market stats and go back 10 years instead of five and use the next 10 days to offer every client that you closed between 2018 and maybe 2024,

a 2026 equity checkup. Show them their leverage, wish them a happy holidays and fill your January pipeline. And if you need those stats for your own listing presentations, don't worry about it. We got it linked up in show notes. And we have the full breakdown waiting for you on Apple Podcasts. Just search KGCI and subscribe, take that data with you. And be sure to come back in the new year because the tax man is cometh. And we'll be reminding you to some of those recent tax changes that you ought to consider. Now, before we get into Glenn Sanford, I got to tell you about this week's Friday focus here on KGCI real estate on air.

because we are dropping the growth blueprint for 2026. It isn't motivational filler. It's tactical deep dive on lead gen, marketing automation and scaling your systems, and it drops this Friday. So if you're traveling, do not rely on that live stream, okay? Radio is near and dear to my heart. But go to that KGCI Real Estate on your mobile app right now, toggle those notifications to on,

and we'll push that blueprint straight to your phone so that way you can binge it while you're sitting in the airport or driving. off to a grandmother's house. And of course, most of your listening over on Apple Podcasts, trust what thousands of agents have already done. Search KGCI. Hit subscribe and leave us that five-star review for a little holiday gift to the producers. Now, if you think that market data is the only thing shifting, wait until you hear from

ExB Realty's founder himself. Glenn Sanford is about to break down why the tech gap is disappearing and how he ended up building like a replacement for like a major community platform in a couple of weeks using AI without ever looking at a single line of code and if you're worried about being replaced by a bot Glenn has one clear reality check for you. AI is not the replacement but the agent using AI is so let's dive into it this is real estate on air live. I'm Ian Wheatley who comes to the studio now. It is my distinguished honor and pleasure

to introduce Mr. Glenn Sanford, the founder of EXP Realty. Thank you, sir, for popping by to KGCI, Real Estate on Air. Hey, Ian, good to be here. Yeah, it's absolutely my pleasure. You, there's so many things that we could probably talk about. But Glenn, I think what I was just kind of talking about because I hear a lot of conversation of agents,

They are overwhelmed by AI. EXP University has this AI accelerator series that they're talking about. But we're seeing AI shift everything, from lead gen to listings to leadership. What's the biggest opportunity that you're seeing right now for agents who choose to embrace AI in their business? Yeah, I mean, the reality is it starts with like the first prompt.

Right. And, you know, obviously, you know, I think we've all using chat GPT or Claude or GROC or GROC or Gemini. I mean, we're using probably one of the foremost likely chat GPT. They've got such a dominant market share of sort of the people typing things in to kind of get answers. And the reality is the questions that you would ask another person, you can now ask AI. Right. So, you know, the question is, is like, how do I get started with incorporating AI into my real estate business?

Well, that's a perfect prompt. Like, that's a prompt that you could ask your ChatGPT. Now, and all these models are getting more and more aware of everything else that you've done. In fact, just yesterday, ChatGPT released the new Atlas browser. And I've already starting to play with it. But basically, it's got ChatGPT built right into the browser. Now, that may not mean a lot. may not impact you that much, but what it is is a gateway to eventually being able to ask your

computer to do stuff on your behalf, which could be things like, hey, I just met, you know, John Doe for at the coffee shop, and I'd like to start a drip campaign for them. And it will then start to put it into your CRM. Right. And it will start to do things on your behalf. And so you're going to basically be able to skip a whole bunch of the learning steps that right now, if you think about where we were two or three months ago, you had to prompt a lot more.

Now you can't, the AIs are getting better and better where one prompt and you can start to actually get real work done. And this is in all the models, Chattebt, B, T, FOD, you know, those types of things. Yesterday here at EXPCon, I did a session on AI and building an app. And somebody threw out an idea, which was, I want to be able to take an inspection report.

I want to be able to upload it, and I want to find out what the costs are to repair a property to bring it up to based on the inspection. And I was like, well, could you've asked me to build something, you know, easier. Sure. And 30 minutes later, yeah, eight prompts in lovable,

we had a platform built that would read a inspection report from any place in the country. It would actually take that inspection report, break it down to its component parts, broke down the prices of each of them, and gave a total cost of what it would take to do the inspection repairs to bring the property back up to,

to where the inspector would have been happy you know and here i was thinking that i was real cute just taking in a taking a report um and dropping it into just a mainline chat and saying help me make an email to the other agent about the repairs or the credits that need to be done this this just that just that just changes the whole game the whole the whole the whole dynamic because and it can be optimized for different markets and different regions and different areas right so you know if i'm sitting over in syracuse new york and you're sitting in you know washington state right the cost for some of these services you know generally speaking the number the cost of lumber is generally the cost of lumber but the cost of labor may be different

some of the materials may be harder to source right um that that could fundamentally change how any of these agents are having informed conversations especially in a negotiation on behalf of their client right yeah because you know they're you know, going through and getting bids on all this stuff, it takes a while. Yeah. And an AI has a pretty good understanding of a lot of things. And so it can come up with, you know, what does it take to fix the driveway of some concrete cracks? Right. It's seeing a lot of data. It kind of knows. Yeah. And so I can say, well, it's going to generally cost around this to fix that. Especially in your area. We're catching up with the

founder of exp realty mr glenn sanford here on k gc i real estate on air we are in the final day from the miami beach convention center for expcon um where are we in the development of a i've heard i hear from a lot of agents especially as i've just kind of milling around they seem disheartened about a i they're discouraged on it they they feel like they haven't gotten started yet and so they must have missed the boat where are we in AI's development, like related to content streaming. Are we still in like the like music Napster era? Are we even at Napster?

Are we at dial-up? So the interesting thing about AI is that if you go back to chat GPT, with 2023, 2024, you know, and you look at 3.5. like so that was kind of like oh this is kind of novel it'll compose me some tweets it'll write me a little essay whatever it give me a poem uh then we went four oh and then it's like oh this actually starts to become a bit of a thought partner um and now we're at at gpt5 and it's a bit of a beast meaning it can do a lot and but each time the model is improved it's shortened the time for the next new person to figure it out. Because the ability for somebody to say, I need an inspection app

to be able to read an inspection and give me the costs. Like, you know, like if I would have tried to do that a year and a half ago, I would have taken me a ton of prompts, probably wouldn't even work. Right. And now I can just do it. And so within a fairly short period of time, let's say it's the next six months you'll be able to say to an AI build me a real estate CRM attached to a real estate website for my community that captures leads and and then for grins and giggles let me I'm going to ask you AI what else should we build right and the AI is going to say well you should add an events calendar and you should do this because I think it'll increase engagement and we should, you know, add a social component

and where we tie it into your your social component. And you'll go, that sounds good. And it'll, it'll do, because it'll be agentic, it will go and connect to your social media, connect to your things, and it'll start to kind of operate as you. And again, people might be disheartened because they're not super techy, which is sort of that bleeding edge. Yeah. But within a few months, you know, six months or so,

you're not going to need any tech. Right. So for the agents that maybe they tried to get a hop-on chat GPT back in 3035 era and they had a hard time with it, what I hear you saying is let not their heart be troubled because it's gotten actually not harder, but it's gotten simpler. It's gotten more intelligent. Now, I say that we actually put the intelligence in AI.

Right. So it's artificial intelligence. We actually can sort of ferret out what's good information, what's good feedback, from a brainstorming partner perspective, what's good, whatever. But it learns from more and more people saying, that's good, that's bad, that's good, that's bad. And so it kind of figures out what's a better user outcome. time somebody prompts it so even though you may not have got a great response six months ago or a year ago and you might have said this is frustrating you know

AI is dumb as a doorknob which by the way AI is still dumb as a doorknob it is it is yes yes it's it surprises me when I spar with it I'm like oh great and then I turn around I try it again and then it's it's like no no you're not you're not following well it will it will agree with you say it'll tell you you every good every idea you have is a good idea yes yeah that's the worst that's the worst part of it i always have to tell my my my little uh my custom gptes i need you to dissent very hard right and they go and it does it right it becomes the devil's advocate um but every now and again it's like well what if i had a good idea you know but uh we're catching up with glen sanford the founder of exb

realty here we're talking about a i we're talking about the future it's it's integration into the future of real estate here from the miami beach convention center on kgci i real estate on air. And let me know if I don't want to blow your ears out on those because those can get a little loud. That one right there, sir. You've built one of the most scalable real estate platforms on the planet. How is AI now helping you scale this whole thing smarter, not just faster? Yeah, well, the reality is that there's a lot of things around EXP that used to take a a lot of developers. And developers cost a lot of money. I mean, they're, they, they're, they're, you know, 120, 550, 200,000 a year, a good developer, 250, 300,000 a year. And, and they only have

so much capacity to build in the traditional sense. And, and so, you know, even if you've got a hundred people, you think about 100 people times, you know, say $200,000 a year. That's, what is that? That's a big overhead. Yeah, that's a lot of money. Right. So now, like I, one of our big pain points was our community. We lost Workplace by Meta. We went over to Slack.

I was suspect to Slack, but, you know, I wanted to give it the support it deserved as a new platform that we were using a year ago, like coming up six months ago or so. but it turned out that it doesn't match up with the persona of real estate agents it's it's fine for staff and developers but it's not good for community that that resonates because you know as as an agent right there is there was when when work as an ex p realty agent as when workplace went away there was this information that i could get out of workplace i could check it at will if i ever had a question about a key announced I knew exactly where to go. There was these networks and groups. And as that went away, right, Slack was a brilliant tool for me to communicate with state broker leaders. It was a great tool for me to communicate with other expe realty agents

to communicate with the expe realty staff. But that community component, I didn't know how much I wanted it and liked it until it wasn't there. Right. Yeah. And a lot of times that's the way it is. You don't actually know how much something is important until it's taken away. Yeah. And so over the last month, I built using AI a replacement for workplace. Okay. Tell me all about this. So, so it's it's hub.exprilty.com. Wonderful. And in it, it has groups. It has posts. You can follow people. You can follow groups. You can join groups. You can basically see what's going on around the world. We don't even have the EXPCon 2025 group already. It's got, you know, it's actually got like six or seven hundred members in it, just from people attending. And people are posting and people are following it. And people are like, we found our

home again. And yeah, I did it without looking at a single line of code. AI built the whole thing. All right. So, and I did it as a bit of an experiment to see if I could do it. One, but two, we needed it. And I figured if I could build it, then a bunch of people that would say, well, you can't build with that with AI. I can go, well, I built that. There you go. And a little birdie tells me there is a beautiful plugin for KGCI real estate on air built right into it. So agents that are diving into it can stream this station right there and they don't have to go to a separate website. Don't have to go to a separate app. My guess is that your listenership on KGCI is going to go up exponentially.

I'm that's that's my hope that's that's the dream Glenn Sanford founder of eXP realty thanks for popping by to KGCI real estate on air I have one more question for you just to kind of set the minds at ease of expe realty agents agents across the nation right you are a thought leader in this industry agents outside the expe realty they look to you some agents nervous that AI is going to replace them what's your take on that No. Well, AI is not going to replace them. The way I think about it is that human beings are looking for experiences. I mean, you know, they're looking for homes. They want the homes to create a certain sort of ambiance. And they're always looking for the next experience. And so there's always going to be a market for people who are creating experiences. And AI can create novel. sort of things that can show up but they're not human experiences and so i i don't actually feel like we're going to be in this mode where jobs are going to go away now for those who don't choose

to adapt they will be impacted a lot because they won't they will not be able to to create the experiences for their customer um for other agents for you know people that they're engaged with, they're going to be to some extent dependent on what other people bring to them. They become the consumer. So it kind of goes back to the concept of what's the product of Facebook? Is Facebook the product or are the people using Facebook the product? The users of the product always. The users are the product. And what AI gives us is the ability to create something. that becomes a product that we can sort of take to the marketplace.

So my little app that I built yesterday to take an inspection, you can spit those out very quickly with a few prompts. So you have to think, what is your customer need? What doesn't exist in the marketplace right now for them at this very moment that I could add value to them? and then you can prompt it out and deliver it during your listing presentation online via your website, what have you. And so it's the person who continually builds and continually creates new experiences that will be employed. Those who don't will be basically pitching products and services that were built two, three, four, five years ago as if they're cutting in.

edge and they won't be because the next agent they're competing with just created a very bespoke experience for the consumer that they're going on competing for a listing appointment for. So the mindset shift here for agents is it's not so much this is something they can't engage with and they need to be afraid of. It's how can they work with it to help them meet their customers and clients' needs? It seems pretty straightforward, but an embracing of this is going to probably go be a whole heck of a lot better for their business in 2026 and beyond than a fearful avoidance. Yeah, well, you can't, if you avoid it, you will be out of business.

I mean, I can't say it any. It's plain and simple. Yeah. I mean, what AI won't do is if you're a big door knocker, yeah. Yeah, AI is not going to go knock on doors for you. No, it won't. And chances are, as it will be illegal.

I think it is basically illegal for AI. to the code call on your behalf. So there are a few things that have to be done, you know, as a human being. So if you're a door knocker, you got a great persona, people like you, you're going to, you're going to still be in business. But if you're kind of geeky like me and you don't really like knocking on doors, you know, AI gives me huge advantages because I can market to the masses. Right.

That has some incredible insights. Glenn Sanford, the founder of ExP Realty. Thank you for this reassuring conversation about the future of AI and real estate right here on KGCI Real Estate on air. Appreciate you so much. Awesome. Thanks, Ian. You know, I know that feeling when you hear the word AI and it feels like the boat's already left the dock or even worse. A boat is coming to run you down.

But after I sat down with EXP founder, Glenn Sanford at EXPCon in Miami a few months back, the message to me was crystal clear that AI is not a replacement. the agent that is using AI is. And the thought partner of it all, like we need to stop thinking of these tools as search engines and start thinking of them as our partners in thought, right? Glenn proved that recently by building this like custom inspection app in like 30 minutes as part of a breakout session without writing a single line of code. And the founder of a global company can use these tools to solve very small friction points, we ought to be able to use that same thing too in our business.

Because here's the truth of it all. The truth is, and this should set our minds at ease, AI cannot create a human experience, right? It can't walk a first-time buyer through the nerves of a closing and it can't knock on a door and build genuine trust. And what it can do though for us is remove some of the busy work so that we can be more human more often. And if I was to try to try to break this down and my top takeaways from that conversation with Glenn Sanford that we had at ExPCon in Miami, it would be this. At number one, stop fearing the prompt. Talk to AI like you would your peer, like you would your partner. Just chat with it, right? Number two, start small. Use it to

analyze a report, draft an email, and watch that time start to come back to you. And at number three, don't worry about this tech gap, okay? Yeah, that might have been a thing. Not that long ago, but these tools are getting simpler. They're not getting harder. And the future of real estate belongs to the creative agent, the one who's using technology to scale their emotional intelligence. And if you want to hear that full conversation about how AI is leveling the playing field,

you know where to go. Head on over to Apple Podcast, search KGCI Real Estate on Air, download that Glenn Sanford interview. and don't just survive the shift. I want you to thrive in it, want you to own it. Now, it's time to have some fun. It's time for real estate confessions. Message us on Facebook and Instagram, your story from the field,

because without your participation here, this segment would not be possible. And because of that, we gotta get one thing straight. Real estate confessions features stories from the wild world of real estate. Names and details may have been changed to protect the innocent, and occasionally the not-so-innocent.

All confessions are shared in good humor and do not reflect the opinions of KGCI real estate on air, its hosts, or affiliates. No agent's licenses were harmed in the making of this segment. Enjoy responsibly. All right, let's consider this the winter and holiday edition of real estate confessions because in real estate, truth is stranger than fiction. out. The front steps were basically an ice rink. I lose my footing at the very top. And as I'm going down, I somehow scoop up my buyer right onto my lap. We literally slid down all 12 steps like a human sled and landed right in the middle of the driveway. Hosting an open house at a vacant listing today. Pro tip, check if the water is actually on.

A five-year-old decided he couldn't wait and use the master bathroom. Let's just say he left behind something a buffalo would be proud of in a non-working toilet. I had to literally go to the neighbor's house, borrow a bucket of water, and manually flush it away. This job is 90% glamour, I swear. I was showing a house that has one of those massive 20-foot inflatable Santas in the front yard. Well, the wind picks up, the stakes rip out of the ground, and this giant nylon St. Nick faceplants right over the front door just as we're trying to leave. We were pinned. My buyers and I were literally trapped in the entryway by a deflating Santa Claus for 10 minutes. I had to crawl out a side window, trek through two feet of snow in my professional flats,

and wrestle a giant motorized North Pole resident, just so my clients could get to their car. Merry Christmas to me. I'm going home, and I'm not coming out until 2026. Yeah, those. those were some wild real estate confessions white out sledding winterized home hijinks and something out of a bee list holiday horror flick if you missed any part of today's show or you want to share glen's a i strategy with your team every segment archive ready for you grab it right now at real estate onair dot fm or on that always free real estate on air mobile app for ipone and android also just search k gc i and apple podcast subscribe and keep your momentum momentum going through the new year i'm me and Wheatley. Stay safe. Stay calculated and we'll see you on the air. Happy holidays.