Most estate agents are using AI for the same four jobs. A fifth have moved on, and they're getting FOUR TIMES the return

Nearly seven in ten (69%) use AI regularly or every day. 

But, 85% use it in four areas or fewer, and the same four dominate everywhere: property descriptions (67%), emails and general comms (53%), admin (37%) and marketing and social media (35%).

Beyond those four, use falls off a cliff.

Reporting and analytics reaches 24%, lead qualification 20%, prospecting 11%, valuation prep 10%, compliance 5% and sales progression 4%. 

Four agents in every hundred are using AI on the single most labour-intensive, most complained-about process in the business.

The reason is simple. The four popular jobs need no integration, no data and no sign-off. Anyone can improve a property description in an AI chat window. Everything below the cliff needs AI plugged into the agency's systems and client data, and that needs a decision, a budget and somebody responsible for it.

Which is exactly where a fifth of agents have already gone.

Agents using AI only for writing and admin save around 1.3 hours a week per user.

Those using it in two or more operational areas save 3.8 hours. The most advanced 20% get around five hours a week back each, almost four times the return of the writing-only group.

Between them, that fifth account for almost half (48%) of all the time AI saves across the whole survey. The least engaged 40% account for just 10%.

Size has nothing to do with it. Half of the top group run single-branch agencies, 35% have two to five branches and 15% have six or more.

Six in ten (60%) of the leading group say their use of AI was a leadership decision, against 24% of the bottom half. That was a stronger predictor than agency size, sales versus lettings, or job title.

Across the sector as a whole, 46% say staff are using AI off their own back, 14% say nobody is driving it and just 6% credit their software provider.

Asked where AI could make the biggest difference in 2027, they put admin first (58%), then lead response and qualification (39%), listing creation (38%), compliance and certificates (36%) and prospecting (32%).

Compliance is the biggest jump, from 5% using AI for it today to 36% naming it a priority for next year. 

Prospecting rises from 11% to 32%. Property descriptions run the other way, used by 67% but a priority for only 38%. The sector considers writing solved and wants AI in the back office.

Half of agents expect to spend more on AI in the next 12 months. Not one of the 250 surveyed expects to spend less.

Three quarters (76%) worry about losing the personal touch with clients and 64% about accuracy. Only 19% worry about falling behind rivals, though that rises to 45% among agencies with six or more branches.

And 51% of agents are aware of the AI already built into the software they pay for every month.

Riccardo Iannucci-Dawson, CEO of Alto, said: "The comfortable reading of this data is that everyone's at roughly the same early stage with AI, so there's time. 

“I don’t think that’s the case. A fifth of agents have already built a measurable advantage, and it isn't because they're bigger or have more budget. Someone at the top decided where AI would be used and gave the team a system that could do it.

"Writing a better property description is useful, but every agent on the high street can do that with the same tool for the same money, so it isn't an advantage. The return is in the jobs below the cliff: answering enquiries at 9:00pm, chasing certificates, automating compliance, keeping progression moving. 

"2027 is the year this stops being an experiment. The agencies that decide now where AI fits will spend next year pulling further ahead, and the longer the rest wait, the more ground there is to make up. The first step costs nothing: find out what the software you already pay for can do."

The full findings are published in The 2027 AI in Estate Agency Report, free to download at Alto's website here.