Zillow, the online real estate company, recently launched a new artificial intelligence-powered feature that lets shoppers search for homes in the same way they talk to friends and family.
Now buyers and renters on Zillow can search for their ideal home simply describing it, including features such as the layout, location, style, condition, lifestyle, and more
Shoppers, for example, can enter phrases like "$700K homes in Charlotte with a backyard" or "open house near me with four bedrooms" directly into the search bar, rather than starting with a location and having to filter through the homes they find, Zillow said. They can also save searches and have Zillow notify them when new qualifying listings a posted, the company said.
The "natural language search" feature is live on the Zillow app for iOS users and is coming soon to Android devices and Zillow’s website, Zillow.com.
"Beyond easy-to-filter criteria like bedrooms and bathrooms, buyers are considering many other specific features that match their unique lifestyle," said Jenny Arden, Zillow's chief design officer. "This new tool is a game changer for home shopping, because it helps shorten the sometimes long and stressful house-hunting process by creating an easy, more modern way to search, and it delivers relevant search results in a simple, uncluttered way."
In addition to being able to use “natural language” to search, the feature is training machine learning models to better respond to queries that use natural, human-like sentences, Zillow said.
The company said it is the first major residential real estate marketplace to implement an AI-powered search engine for shopping for a home.
The company sad it continues to invest in tech innovation like AI as part of its vision to deliver the "housing super app" — a single digital ecosystem of connected solutions for all the tasks and services related to moving.
"The future of real estate will be powered through AI," Arden said. "We are proud to be the first in the industry to offer this smarter way to search, and excited to see how it learns and evolves to help each Zillow shopper find their perfect home."
