We asked 727 people who work in real estate how they use AI at work. They answered The AI Report’s Where You Stand benchmark between July 20, 2026 and November 2, 2026. Here is how far along they are, what holds them back, what they want from AI next and which tools the most advanced teams use, compared with all 14,452 people in the benchmark.
Key findings
- People in real estate are close to the benchmark average. 14% are leaders, against 14% of all respondents, and 65% are still early.
- The biggest blocker is picking the right tools (37%), followed by the skills gap (27%).
- Their top goal is to save time (37%). More of them than average want to grow revenue: 21% against 14%.
- ChatGPT is the most used AI tool (82% of those who named a tool), then Claude (64%) and Gemini (43%).
How far along people in real estate are with AI
The largest share of people in real estate say they are “just exploring” (42%). 7% say AI is used across their company and 7% are rolling it out to their team.
- Just exploring
- Testing a few tools
- Using 1 to 3 tools for real
- Rolling out to their team
- Used across the company
- Helping others with AI
What holds people in real estate back
We asked for the single biggest blocker. Picking the right tools leads at 37%. If that is you too: shortlist tools by the job you need done.
- Real estate
- All respondents
What they want from AI in the next 90 days
37% want to save time, 26% want to build their AI skills and 21% want to grow revenue.
- Real estate
- All respondents
The AI tools people in real estate use
People named 3.0 AI tools each on average. These are the 12 most used, as a share of the 658 people here who named at least one. Compare any of them in our AI tool database.
- Real estate
- All respondents
What the leaders use differently
Leaders are the 105 people in real estate whose AI is rolled out to their team or used across their company. They named 3.0 tools each, against 2.8 for the 476 who are still early. These are the clearest differences.
| Tool | Leaders | Early | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 68% | 85% | -16 pts |
- Share of each group who use the tool. Leaders: 95 people, early: 425 people.
Where they use AI at work
Writing comes first (62%), then personal productivity (53%) and research (50%). People could pick several areas.
- Real estate
- All respondents
- Asked July 20 to August 31, 2026: 381 answers.
Budget for a first AI project
38% are not sure yet. The most common amount named is under $500 (42%).
- Real estate
- All respondents
- Asked from September 1, 2026: 346 answers.
Who answered
55% decide, recommend or have a say in what their company buys.
Company size
- Real estate
- All respondents
Role
- Real estate
- All respondents
Say in what their company buys
- Real estate
- All respondents
What leaders told The AI Report podcast
“About a third of content is not machine readable right now.”
Vivek Pandya, Director and Lead Insights Analyst, Adobe Digital Insights at Adobe. Check whether AI can actually read your website. Adobe's analysis of retail pages finds about a third of content is not machine-readable. Restructure and organize your content, including your home page, store locator, returns and FAQ pages, so it is clear to machines. Then make sure reviews, Reddit threads and social posts back up what your site claims, because AI agents cross-check before recommending you. Watch or read the episode.
Jake George and Joe Jepsen, AI agent builders at Agentic Brain. If inbound leads go cold because nobody follows up, a speed-to-lead agent can reply to every form within a minute, qualify the person, chase non-responders on a schedule that respects business hours, and book a call so a human closes. Set clear limits on what it may handle. When a conversation goes outside them, the agent should hand it to a person and stop replying. Watch or read the episode.
Next steps
- Shortlist tools by the job you need done. The AI Report tool database compares 5,500+ AI tools by use case and price.
- Join the free live Claude session. Every Tuesday at 2pm ET, free for every reader.
- Get a plan built for you. The AI Report Pro turns your benchmark answers into a 90-day AI plan, step by step.
How do you compare?
Answer the same nine quick questions as these 14,452 people. See which of five AI types you are, how you compare with readers like you, and get a free 30-day AI roadmap by email.
Free. You also get The AI Report, the five-minute AI briefing, every weekday. Unsubscribe anytime.
Compare with other groups
The full benchmark: AI at Work Benchmark 2026, with every industry, role and company size side by side.
By industry: Professional services, Healthcare, Software and tech, Education, Marketing and media, Manufacturing, Nonprofits and government, Financial services, Retail and e-commerce, Legal.
By role: Executives and founders, Directors, Managers and team leads, Individual contributors, Consultants and advisors, Students and career switchers.
By company size: Solo professionals, Small businesses (2 to 50), Mid-size companies (51 to 1,000), Large enterprises (1,001+).
About this data
These numbers come from The AI Report’s Where You Stand benchmark. Between July 20, 2026 and November 2, 2026, 14,452 people completed it. This page covers the 727 who said they work in real estate.
- Answers are self-reported. People chose their own industry, role, company size and stage.
- “Early” means just exploring or testing a few tools. “Leaders” means AI is rolled out to their team or used across their company.
- People could pick more than one tool, so tool shares add up to more than 100%. Tool shares are out of the 658 people here who named at least one tool.
- Where people use AI was asked from July 20 to August 31, 2026 (381 answers here).
- Budget was asked from September 1, 2026 (346 answers here).
- Percentages are rounded to whole numbers.
- We never publish individual answers. A group only gets a page with 100 or more people, and we only compare groups of 30 or more.
- People who take an AI newsletter's quiz are more interested in AI than the average worker, so read these numbers as a benchmark of people actively working on AI, not a national average.
Last updated November 2, 2026. To cite this page: The AI Report, AI at Work Benchmark 2026, theaireport.ai/tools/benchmark.