AI for Real Estate Agents: How to Get Found in AI Search and Stop Posting AI Slop

Agents keep asking me two questions about AI. The first is whether SEO still matters now that buyers and sellers are asking ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude instead of Google. The second is how to use AI for marketing without ending up with the same generic posts everyone else is putting out.

I'll admit the second one hits close to home. I look at my own video tours and content and think, this looks just like everyone else's. AI can fix that or make it much worse.

So when Chris Smith came on Best Advice Ever, I spent a good part of the interview on both questions. Chris co-founded Curaytor, wrote The Conversion Code, and now runs an AI company and a content agency for agents. He lives in this every day. Here's what I took away, in two parts: getting found, and making content worth finding.

SEO isn't dead. It has a new cousin.

The new term is AEO, answer engine optimization. A search engine gives you a list of links. An answer engine gives you an answer and cites a few sources along the way.

Chris's point is that most of the fundamentals carry over. SEO has always been about making it easy for Google to understand what's on your page and where it belongs. AEO is the same idea for AI tools. Clear structure, real answers to real questions, and FAQs still matter.

On our own site, we've been working on exactly those basics: structured data, neighborhood pages, and a bank of real questions our clients ask. That work helps with both kinds of search.

Why your website alone probably won't win

Here's the hard part. Chris said getting your own website cited by an AI tool will be just as hard as ranking at the top of Google.

Think about why. Every agent's website says they're great. The big platforms have reviews written by consumers, lots of links, and years of trust. When an AI tool decides which source to believe, an agent's own site is rarely the most trusted voice in the room.

So instead of fighting for your site alone, Chris suggests standing on the shoulders of giants. According to him, the two platforms cited most often in AI answers are Reddit and YouTube. Both are free, and most agents barely use them.

YouTube: your transcript does the heavy lifting

This surprised me. Chris said the title and description matter, but what really decides where a video shows up is the transcript. What you actually say on camera is what gets understood and indexed. When he searches the title of one of his company's videos, it often appears in the AI overview and near the top of the regular results.

That makes your script your SEO. A few practical takeaways:

• Plan what you'll say, and say specific place names and questions out loud and clearly.
• Add chapters to your videos so they're easy to crawl and easy to scan.
• Answer one clear question per video when you can.

Reddit: be the most helpful person in the thread

Search "best realtor in" plus your city. Chris guessed Reddit will show up near the top, and in my experience he's usually right. Open those threads and the most recent reply is often a year or two old.

The mistake most agents make is jumping in with "Me! Call me!" That goes nowhere on Reddit. What works is a genuinely thoughtful answer: what makes an agent the right fit for a luxury sale, a short sale, or a first-time buyer. Say you'd like to think you're one of the good ones, but you're not the only one. Share a useful guide, even one on selling without an agent. Helpful answers get upvoted, and upvoted answers get seen and cited.

Two cautions from a broker's chair. Read each community's rules on self-promotion and be upfront that you're an agent. And when you talk about neighborhoods, stick to facts like commute, amenities, and housing stock. Stay clear of anything that could read as steering.

People ask AI different questions than they ask Google

Chris's last point on search is easy to miss. Nobody types "homes for sale in Solon" into ChatGPT. They ask something like "What are the best suburbs east of Cleveland with a short commute and good parks?"

Your videos, posts, and Reddit answers should take on those longer, conversational questions. That's what gets pulled into answers.

Taste is the new skill

Getting found only helps if what people find is worth their time. That's where the second half of the conversation came in.

Chris made a prediction I keep thinking about. Over the next 10 years, you won't need the best skills. You'll need the best taste. He compared it to a museum curator, who gets far more art than the museum can show and decides what goes on the wall. You don't have to create every good idea. You have to recognize the good ones and make them relevant to your audience.

Taste depends on your inputs. Chris sets up social feeds he learns from, subscribes to specific newsletters, and uses recurring scheduled tasks in ChatGPT and Claude to bring him ideas. He also mutes a lot, including politics and crypto, because what you consume shows up in what you create. And most of the ideas he shares with agents come from outside real estate. He sees a clever campaign from another industry and asks what the realtor version looks like. For a local agent, the question is what our version would look like here in Northeast Ohio.

Ask AI for the unusual idea

Chris has conversations with AI where the whole point is creative ideas. He tells it he doesn't want the standard headshot, just listed, or just sold post, and asks for more original ways to show the same thing.

One idea that came out of that: instead of a map or a stat showing how many homes an agent has sold, picture a keychain with a key for every one of them. For our team, that would be more than 3,000 keys. Chris said a version of that post did really well for him. The lesson is to ask for what you actually want, which is something unique.

Tell AI to make it not look like AI

Chris calls it AI slop blindness. People have learned to spot and skip content that screams AI, the same way they learned to ignore banner ads.

His fix works when you're specific. He wanted one of his viral posts written on a whiteboard, and the first version looked typed onto the board. So he asked for worse handwriting and a few smudges, and the final version looked like he'd actually written it. With images of people, ask for real skin texture and some age instead of the airbrushed look everyone recognizes.

Two pro tips. Put these standards in your account settings or custom instructions so you don't have to repeat them. And don't stop at "don't make it look like AI." Describe what real looks like.

Then never post the first draft. Chris trained a Claude project on his books, newsletters, and every social post he's made, ranked by engagement. Even so, if he asks for 10 posts, he might like one, and he'll still tweak it. AI never gets tired of "try again," so be picky.

Contrarian angles, used carefully

Chris also talked about contrarian hooks. A title like "Five Reasons Not to Move to Cleveland" pulls more views than "Why Cleveland Is Great," especially when the reasons turn out to be compliments: you don't like friendly people, great restaurants, world class hospitals, or pro sports.

It's a smart hook. As a broker, I'd add the obvious caution. Keep it about amenities, lifestyle, and housing, never about who lives somewhere. That keeps you on the right side of fair housing.

Where to start this week

You don't need to overhaul everything. Pick five questions your clients ask all the time and answer each in a short YouTube video with a clear script and chapters. Find two or three Reddit threads about your area and leave the most helpful reply in each. And the next time you use AI for a post, ask it for something different, describe what real looks like, and don't publish until you'd be proud to put your name on it.

That's a better use of an afternoon than rewriting your website for the tenth time.

Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to my interview with Chris Smith on Best Advice Ever.

Mike Ferrante
The Mike Team at LPT Realty
www.21mike.com
Google Business Profile: https://g.page/r/CSQoYzel0Z68EAE
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