Today in Partnerships I Never Expected, Zillow announced the launch of a new ChatGPT plugin. It is called, as you might expect, the ChatGPT plugin. And if you enable it, you’ll be able to do what you’d expect something the Zillow ChatGPT plugin is called to allow you to do: search for a home.
Specifically, those with the plugin can tell ChatGPT what type of property they are looking to buy or rent, and sharing criteria such as location, price, and number of bedrooms. ChatGPT will then dive into Zillow’s database and pull out a few options for you.
Generative AI is changing the way people search for information
The plug-in is available “to a select number of ChatGPT users today, with a broader reach expected in the future.” (I’m very curious as to how on earth these users get picked. It’s very likely that they’re people who use ChatGPT Plus since those are usually prioritized for plugins. But if it’s about “people who spend a lot of time browsing Zillow when They should not be,” I might have a shot. Fingers crossed.)
“Generative AI is transforming the way people search for information,” reads part of a statement from Zillow CTO David Beitel. “We understand its huge potential, and look forward to developing more technical innovations using OpenAI technology in the future.”
The announcement comes just a few months after Zillow launched its “natural language search” feature, which allows shoppers to enter conversational phrases into the site’s search bar to return results. At the time, Zillow boasted that it was “the first major residential real estate marketplace” to implement this type of AI-powered research. Zillow is focused on growing its core business of home browsing and price estimates after terminating its homebuying program at the end of 2021.
Now, some of you may be wondering: why would someone enter the desired location, price, and number of bedrooms into ChatGPT instead of, say, entering them directly into Zillow? So I say: shut up. The ChatGPT plugin is currently in alpha testing (which comes before the beta version), which means that the version users see today will be very far from the final product. Testers are supposed to send in plenty of feedback about their needs and use cases, and we’ll see how useful that is as we go.
I can only hope that this leads to some very funny stories as the internet uncovers plugin glitches and glitches. Is someone going to convince ChatGPT to sell them their house or the White House or something else that doesn’t make sense? Only time will tell! let’s ride.