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Agents face familiar fears in a new AI cycle

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2 weeks ago

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It’s the beginning of real estate conference season, and with that comes a new dark cloud or boogeyman to talk about. As long as I’ve been in real estate, there have always been themes of ominous fear designed to get us off our butts and make some change in our businesses. And that’s what real estate conferences are for. They welcome us with open arms (as long as you part with the $799 conference fee) and scare us into needing them.

The conference mantra is to never waste a good real estate or economic crisis, so grab it by the waist (à la Wiarton Willie) and showcase it for all to see.

Why would 2026 be any different, with the Groundhog Day effect alive and well? Except we conference-goers are the groundhog and the crisis is our shadow. As real estate practitioners, we can decide to hibernate for another six weeks until the proverbial spring market appears, or we can embrace the change and disruption and find a way to integrate even one element or nugget into our businesses. I’ve always wondered: is it just our industry, or do all industries have this paranoia phenomenon?

Does the auto industry start the year by putting the fear of God into the dealer community? Do they disseminate doom and gloom into the psyche of automobile salespeople? Do they talk about how disrupters like Tesla are going to ruin the industry, or how low-priced Chinese EV imports will wipe out EV sales in North America? Or how higher oil prices will shut down large SUV production?

Sounds familiar. Maybe they do.

 

What industries are going to get AI’d next?

 

I always like to follow where investment money goes. If you read the tea leaves from the Feb. 3, sell-off, there may be a software meltdown underway. The market just figured out that AI agents can replace, commoditize and customize software as a service. Salesforce and HubSpot dropped seven per cent and 9.8 per cent, respectively, as part of a sector-wide reset in software valuations.

Investment and M&A money have always looked at various sectors through a vulnerability lens. For instance, as companies like Home Depot and Amazon came to prominence, they used their names as verbs. Investors would say things like “stay away from companies that can be ‘Home Depoted’ or ‘Amazoned,’” and would look for companies with a proverbial moat around them.

Well, software has been AI’d, and the rising star is service companies that are great at the last mile but use software to drive efficiency, create a better customer experience and increase revenue. Who might that be?

 

Who just joined the trillion-dollar club?

 

Not only did February 2026 leave sharp tech company losses in its wake, but we also witnessed a new entrant into the trillion-dollar club. Walmart is the first traditional retailer to enter the club. Its value has been driven in part by the market’s need for certainty, which investors get from companies that transact in consumer staples.

However, an even bigger driver is this brick-and-mortar retailer’s embrace of technology, including the growth of its online retail arm, Jet.com. Furthermore, Walmart flexed its technology prowess by switching its listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq on Dec. 9, 2025. This is a great example of a service retailer embracing technology and using its on-the-ground employees and locations to dominate the last mile.

 

Winners don’t wait for certainty

 

So what do the early stock market winners in 2026 tell us about the mindset of Wall and Bay streets? U.S. winners are dominated by the new economy — AI and software, biotech, wireless power and data storage — whereas the Canadian list focuses on old-economy resources that will enable new technologies and supply much-needed energy to power them.

Both of these top-gainer lists scream uncertainty and speculation, but they are tied to long-term structural change and make perfect sense at a macro level.

So where does that leave those of us on good old Main Street as we navigate brick-and-mortar opportunities? How our clients achieve their real estate objectives comes in different forms, but in the end, when you provide great information along with solid real-time contextual data, you become their valuable strategist.

Remember, it’s important to convey the message that winners don’t wait for certainty. The next group of homeowners and investors may still experience some turbulence in the short run, but it will be well worth it in the medium and long term. Allow your clients’ sensibilities to guide their decisions, and remind them not to focus on the last doom-and-gloom clickbait on Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok.

Remember one thing about the real estate market: when your circumstances are right, you aren’t early and you aren’t late — you are on time.

Human-in-the-loop

 

Human-in-the-loop (HITL) is an AI model that integrates human intelligence (before AI, human intelligence was just intelligence), judgment and oversight within the task at hand. The best example is AI directly communicating with Fiverr or another freelance platform to complete a task that only a human can do.

For those of us in the service sector, it’s when technology reaches its final frontier and can do no more. That’s when they send in the human to lean in with a “human connection.” It’s as if we humans are AI’s stunt double, called in when the so-called heavy emotional lifting is required.

Last time I checked, we humans are still better at the craft of the human relationship, but anecdotally there is evidence we might be losing ground. As a result, those who can establish stronger human relationships will ultimately find success in this era of systematic change. It’s about honing our ability to lean in and master the things AI cannot touch.

 

AI’s unintended consequence

 

Disruption always precedes growth, just as Bitcoin levels up after it crashes. We are undergoing a seismic shift in human efficiency. Without these technological ramps (some may describe them as obstacles), we would never have the opportunity for growth. It’s important to allow your comfort zone to expand in order to truly experience growth.

All of us at one time have said we were sick and tired of some sort of disruptive technology: “I’m sick and tired of email. I’m sick and tired of the internet. I’m sick and tired of social media. And, of course, I’m sick and tired of AI.”

However, it comes down to who wins with this disruptive technology. Small business wins. Creative people win. All things local win. That encompasses who we are as agents; it’s in our DNA. We are small businesses that can react to macroeconomic circumstances at a micro level. We are creative to our core. And we are local, with our ears to the ground.

We should react with local precision and use AI to scale our businesses. Let’s remember our origins as a species that travelled in packs, where being persistent, adaptive and courageous brought us to this point. Emotional intelligence will dominate the agenda going forward, where being human will rival AI.