AI-Powered Search Alerts: The New Standard for The Most Engaging Agent-Client Experience
BoldTrail is taking the search experience to the next level.
In this peek-behind-the-curtain, Joe Skousen, Chris McGoldrick, Julia Laurin, and George Mountis break down how generative AI and Inside Real Estate's acquisition of ListAssist are going to reshape the way buyers discover homes—and how agents engage leads.
You’ll see how natural language search makes it possible for consumers to find exactly what they’re looking for, using phrases like “modern kitchen with white granite” or “homes near a coffee shop with no brick.” This isn't just smarter filters—it's a deeper understanding of what buyers actually want.
The team also shares how this innovation goes beyond the search bar, helping agents automatically re-engage leads in their database with intelligent, behavior-based alerts that drive conversations and results.
If you're ready for proof—not promises—of how AI can fuel engagement, efficiency, and repeat business, this one’s a must-watch. [Learn More About BoldTrail!]
Transcript:
[Joe Skousen] Today, we're we're going through some of our new innovation a little bit. And so we thought we'd bring the group of us together and describe to folks, what we have been working on behind the scenes a bit together. Right? So, Chris, we came together. How long has it been now? How many how many about three three months now officially.
Yeah.
Yeah. Some days it feels like a month, and some days you're like, it's been decades. You know?
But we we brought the list assist team into the inside real estate family, and C-Mac and George and Julia and their teams, have been kinda working on some of this beautiful stuff behind the scenes. We wanted to get in and kinda talk about that. And as we're going in, there's really this overarching kind of thought around really truly intelligent technology. Everyone uses the terms AI and, intelligence and those things, but really getting to the to the kind of nuts and bolts of what intelligent technology is and what it can do for you. So we're gonna be talking about that a little bit.
And getting to the heart of search alerts.
You know, search alerts in real estate are like this thing that have has been there for many, many years. It's almost like the core of engagement often because it's it's working with properties.
And so we're kinda bringing these things together. It's pretty exciting. We'll we'll get down to some of it. But, Chris, let me throw it over to you. I mean, a little bit of background. We've talked before and shared some of this stuff out, but a little bit of background in how you were kinda coming at some of these some of these things that we're working on now.
[Chris McGoldrick] Absolutely. Yeah. So, I think for us yeah. For for a little more list is this background.
So we launched about three years ago, in New Zealand. We've always been laser focused on that American market and very quickly kind of developed our vision of being the most trusted AI business in the industry. What we sort of very quickly saw is how how fast people are to throw AI on the end of a product or on the end of a a release to try and get attention and to try and kinda tick that box. So we're really obsessed over building proof points over over promises.
And we're fortunate that we got a number of really great reputable partners early on that were actually integral in helping us develop our, you know, our products and and kind of find our product market fit. So, you know, for us, like, now being a part of the Inside Real Estate family has just been, you know, the most incredible fit. And I think the last couple of months, a lot of, you know, people I've spoken to in the industry have talked about, you know, what a good fit and good idea this is, you guys acquiring us. But, hopefully, you know, pretty soon once we launch some of these offerings, that's gonna go from from good to great pretty quickly, I think.
[Joe Skousen] Yeah. Exactly. From good idea to, wow. Look look look what this is. Yeah. Exactly.
Well, love that. And, Julia, we kinda came in with some pretty clear views as to what we could what this could become. They've gotten even clearer now, but, but we kinda came in with some good ideas as to what we could we could go do together.
Yeah. Absolutely.
[Julia Laurin] And, we are just so excited here at Inside Real Estate, to have, the the the list assist team, join our family and and really be able to join forces, Chris, with you and the team. And what really excites me is that we're not just adding, like, a keyword based search that's, like, dressed up as natural language search, for example.
We've really together fundamentally reimagined, how consumers discover homes. And so for example, with list assist, a generative AI technology now integrated into our BoldTrail platform, your clients can, you know, can search for a modern kitchen with white, granite, countertops, for example, or a search for, a a a double, panel doors and mahogany and actually find them. And so this really isn't just a keyword matching dressed up as AI. It's it's really gets to the root of semantic understanding at that deeper level, where where AI is trying to help understand the context and the intent.
And, it's not that a buyer really wants three bedrooms. What they want is a bedroom and a place to have a home office and a place to have a, a, a, a guest room, for example. And so it's really, you know, able to, kind of decipher that in our enhanced type of search experience, describe the things they actually need, and our AI delivers these types of matches that they never have found with standard filters.
[Joe Skousen] Yeah. That's awesome. And, you know, it goes to Chris, you you, I think, said a a second ago, but there's a phrase that you've used a couple of times that I've heard you heard you talk about has something to do with, proof versus, you know, when you're dealing with AI, like, what what is that phrase? Promise.
[Chris McGoldrick] Yeah. So proof over promises. So it is obviously just such an incredibly noisy space. And, you know, it's been it's been interesting sort of trying to navigate it and and kind of get away from the shiny object syndrome and actually focus on on kind of real life proof points.
Right? And and you touched on, you know, kind of how you'd been thinking about it internally sort of before, during, and and and post acquisition. And I think, you know, that should fill BoldTrail users with a tremendous amount of confidence, right, is that you have been thinking about the big picture here for the top teams, agents, and brokers, how it actually impacts their business, not just so that you can scream from the rooftops, hey. Joe's in the AI game.
How clever is this? You know? And, again, I think that should fill, you know, the customer base with a tremendous amount of confidence that this is incredibly well thought out. There's real world proof points with some of the biggest brands in real estate, you know, using our search over the last six to twelve months.
And, you know, there's some incredible, parts of of of our clients' businesses that are about to change very quickly.
[Joe Skousen] Yeah. Yeah. That's great. The other the other thing that I like about this concept of proof over promise and really the intent of AI and intelligent technology is that, these days, you see how fast AI is moving.
Right? And and all the kind of AI driven technologies out there. You can spin stuff up these days. You know, George, you, and Julia, and some of us the other day were like we're playing with some tools.
We're like, holy crap. Look how fast you can spin stuff up.
And yet unlocking the proof and the power, the results from that tech isn't quite as fast as jumping online using an AI tool and just spinning something up. Right? And so one of the things that was most exciting to us as we set out here is we're bringing some of the most powerful AI technology with the industry's broadest, deepest, most robust ecosystem of technology and data. We have more data signals from search to behaviors to conversion funnels to how do you drive engagement with search alerts.
We have more of that than basically anybody out there, And bringing this kinda AI tech together with it, that's what got us so pumped, honestly. We're like, alright. We can we can kinda bring some of this stuff together. So, George, I don't know if you wanna talk a little bit about, like okay.
So how are we doing it? Like, what's this thing gonna be? You know?
[George Mountis] Yeah. Yeah. And and I'll I'll share some some screens here.
So, yeah, you know, first and foremost, you know you know, as Julia mentioned, buyers use everyday language to to search for homes, and that that's typically how they speak to their agents and what they're looking for. And so what we've done is is we've taken that concept and taken some of these concepts around how list assist, built this and utilizing, you know, a a new interface, you know, in the consumer experience where, you really are are searching like you speak. You know, even giving you a little microphone here, where you can kind of talk to to to the to the to the to the interface.
And, it's it's it could be voice to to speech, and there's there's no filtering, no drop downs, no, like, you know, selecting your price range. Now you can do that.
But, really, you know, we've given you some prompts just like a lot of the the generative AI, solutions that are out there. You could see it's very similar to that, and and you can go in there and and give it, you know, a phrase. We're testing this out with our proof of concept, and it and it works amazing. So, you know, you can you can ask it like, hey.
Show me single family homes in this particular area, this particular price, that have modern kitchens, white granite countertops, you know, at least a single car garage near a coffee shop. I mean, you can go to town on this. And what it's gonna do is gonna be looking at the MLS data first and foremost like we normally do, but it's also going to be layering in the the computer vision, looking at each individual image, you know, of of the listing. And then also looking at the listing descriptions to really give you that accurate, view.
And once you go ahead and and and make that search, you'll see a brand new interface that's really taking that entire sentence and parsing it into what we call criteria based search filters. So, you know, obviously, the the type, the price range, home. And so we're translating that and then also taking those keywords and and utilizing those keywords and and looking at the actual imagery, looking at the listing description, and trying to to find some of these, homes that you most likely may never have found. What's kinda crazy is, you know, I I you know, in the Charleston market, we were looking at, homes, and I was like, I don't want any brick homes.
They're just kinda odd. They're they look a little bit old. So I was able to to say no brick. I mean, there's no MLS field in there that says no brick homes.
I wanted that. Then I started getting a little bit crazier. I started looking for mahogany doors, double doors, palm trees, stuff like that. Just, you know, the the image recognition is picking up and and pulling it, and it and it works beautifully.
And then we also have this the ability to to give it a thumbs down, which gives our data team, and and all the real smart guys that are doing all the, AI pieces, like, some information back to them where they basically say, hey. That didn't actually belong there. Why? And allows them to tune it.
So we we've been tuning this AI now for about, two months. We just got the school data in there. We're we're getting all of the the, elements in place and the UI in place. So you can kinda see, you know, just a a real beautiful kind of new experience, that lends itself to other things down the road.
Like, for example, we're also working through, a mobile app where you could listen to the conversations that you're having, with your customers and really parse out that same exact language and and create that search, experience for you because those search alerts are are so incredibly important.
[Joe Skousen] That is George, that that just I mean, let me pause it for a second. Because that you just hit a bunch of a bunch of things there. And what is so cool about this is, again, it's taking I mean, today, as it is, we send millions and millions of search alert emails per month. Right?
We've got we've got, you know, over a hundred and fifty million consumers in the databases overall. We deal with lots of volume and lots of traffic and lots of engagement indicators as it is. And so as you've applied it and you're able to get to this depth of results, this really is the most powerful kinda AI haired search because it's not just AI. It's AI plus all the structured data is kinda what you're saying.
Right? That's right. It's like the best of both where you can kinda, like, bring those together.
[George Mountis] And it's smart. It it I mean, it's it I've tried to trip this up several times. Again, we've had this, like, two month period of really kinda tuning it, and it's it's fast. It it's it it's just pretty it just feels very natural.
And so we we thought, hey. That that's pretty awesome from a consumer experience, but why not give that to the agent as well when you're creating those search alerts? And and as you mentioned, Joe, we, yeah, we send about a hundred and sixty million search alerts, a month and twenty percent I mean, that that brings back the most repeat track.
Hundred and sixty million a month.
Yes.
That's it's wild. And so there's all this learning and data that you have that you get to kinda combine and test against. Right? It's not like a theoretical, hey.
I wonder if this could work on a search somewhere. Yeah. If someone launches it on a portal and they're like, man, this kinda stinks. This is like the real deal in-depth.
Right? I mean, that's cool.
Yeah. We we have all the open rates, click through rates. We have several different templates that we learned from that we're now AB testing. And so we wanted to make the actual creation of the search alert as simple as possible.
And so we've done that two ways. One, you know, as as, you know, agents will always wanna custom tailor that search alert. So very much so, like like, you're doing the like, a consumer would search like we had mentioned. We even introduced that exact same, microphone in there where you can go in and type in, the the actual, search.
It does the same thing. But but not only that, you know, what's great about this being in Vault Trail is now we're instantly showing you the results. So you don't have to go save and then go view them.
Before you save, you can really kind of tune this.
You've got a ton of new filters that you can kinda go in there.
You can save that. It'll ask you, you know you know, the the the default subject line, all the things that we know really, you know, work well together.
You say that, and and that's one way. But the the second way and and we know a lot of agents don't necessarily always take the time to set this up because they don't know the the search criteria because they don't necessarily get a phone call right away when they're when they're very much in that that stranger, with with they don't really know much about that that person. But they've somehow come to their website, and they've looked at some properties, whether it's property boost or some sort of lead generation that we brought them in. And so we are we are looking at, you know, taking that that that search, you know, and and taking your entire database and reactivating some of these leads that do not necessarily have search alerts because it is your number one driver back to your branded website.
And so what we're doing is we're take looking at your entire database. And let's just say you've got, you know, you know, about twenty percent of your database is on search alerts. We're gonna look at every single contact in your database that's eligible for a search alert, and we're gonna start to apply, some some a b sort of testing and send them, a wide swath of search alerts and even questions and listen to some of the signals when they come back and then hone that search alert based on the different behavior activities that they have. And so the this this just means that your entire database, will be back on search alerts so so you really, get get those those emails clickable and get them back to your to your website.
[Joe Skousen] Oh, man. That is that is so freaking awesome. And it's kinda like therein lies Julia, you know, we've talked a lot about, like, the results, the out, Like, what okay. So what does all this mean in terms of, like, actual conversations? And we're pretty bullish on it, Julia, I think.
[Julia Laurin] Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think, honestly, the future of real estate isn't really about, like, who has the most leads. It's about who's creating the most engaging experiences and using those experiences to drive meaningful conversations. Right? So with this AI, you know, now powering our platform, both your websites and our search alerts, it really becomes a center of engagement that your clients actually do wanna return to, and and search alerts and and and the reactivation there to help drive high quality conversations and really a new level of service to your entire SOI.
This is really how you build a business that scales.
[Joe Skousen] We're gonna we're gonna five to ten x those conversations, you know, and I'm gonna put that little tattoo in the small of my back, you know. So if you're hanging out with me and I bend over, you might see a little five x back there.
Better you than me, Joe.
But, but we're we're we're really serious about it. We're hell bent on driving those results.
And what's exciting is to see kind of the early the early view of that already, but, there's still there's still lots of learning to apply. That's that's part of what we get to do. I think George in this whole thing, right, is is, like, learn, iterate, learn, iterate super fast.
Yeah. And and much of what we're doing is is we know that those content those those leads in your database come back to the sites. And while we're we're listening for those signals and those bigger signals where, you know, they looked at five properties within an hour. They looked at fifteen properties in a certain period of time.
They saved x amount. Those are the type of things that you know, the part of the flywheel that we want to alert the agent. And that is why, you know, we're we're saying we we will believe that this is going to create more conversations because there's going to be a lot more automation and basically and a lot more, repeat traffic, a lot more engaging experiences that ultimately provide the agent signals of who is actually bubbling up in their database and performing, the those high high quality, engagements. And at that point, we're gonna make it very easy for you to pick up the phone and call.
And while we call, we we we can summarize. We can do all sorts of great things, but that is the reason why we believe in the five x and the ten x conversations. You know? And because this is a much more engaging experience, there's smarter automation, you know, and and it's a high highly likelihood to convert based on some of the the the new kind of user experience that we've we've presented here.
Yeah. It's it's yeah. Go ahead, George.
[George Mountis] There's one one other thing that gets me really excited, and that's just the the actionable insights here. So we will be sending, you know, a monthly, email to your admin and your agents based on what we've done within the database and how many new people that we brought back to life, how many more you know, based on some of our our reengagement efforts, we'll be able to tell you who's engaging, how much more engagement your database is getting on a monthly basis, and and really kind of sharing with you some of the the the a b testing that we're doing and and and how we're we're we're growing the, you know, that that engagement. And so that that's really exciting as well. And so those actionable insights, you know, can really guide, agents to to to close more deals and and really help them focus on where to to to put their energy.
I love that. I was gonna ask about that actually. And, Chris, you've you've seen people using those insights from from leveraging AI already.
How are they using some of the insights that come from this kinda deeper intelligent search experience? Like, what are you seeing? What what have you seen out there so far?
[Chris McGoldrick] Absolutely. So there there's a range of different use cases that we've seen actually. One of the first ones was just the the team leader having, you know, these reports and insights being handed out to all of their, agents, and they had to take it to all of their listing appointments. Their view was it was a great way to stand out in their market.
It showed that they really knew something that the rest of the market didn't, and really help make that fit as to why they should be the agent and team that lists your property. Obviously, it really helps optimize things like listing descriptions, SEO, and kind of broader digital marketing initiatives where, you know, you truly understand what people are asking for, what you should be highlighting in your listing that you're bringing to market. There's a much broader content piece as well. Like I think people are very just interested in kind of what's selling, what people want in their market, how that pertains to what they have in their home that's not currently on the market.
They may not be talking to an agent particularly closely, but just knowing well, actually, I I do have this pool. I have this, you know, big backyard, which seems to be, you know, really big in the area, and these are the things that people really are asking for. Maybe it is worth, you know, having a conversation or coming back to this agent. And, you know, when you look at, this experience that George has just outlined too, like, you know, a lot of the sort of prospects and customers we have, they have a desire to stand out in their market.
And we think this is just such an incredible way to do that. And I think the way I think about it, if you come and have an experience like George has just given us now as a user and get those personalized follow ups and alerts, you know, are you really gonna wanna go to a competitor the next day and start by entering a ZIP code? You know, I I think the answer to that is very unlikely. You you can be brave enough to try it if you want, but I I I think this is very quickly gonna become an expectation.
And if you think of this purely from a consumer perspective, if you think of this purely from a consumer perspective, should I say, you come and have an experience of this, why would you then go and start with, you know, a competitor the next day, start by entering a ZIP code and and having them draw a map around an area and hope that you can find something that's sort of in your wheelhouse. You know?
[Joe Skousen] Yeah. I I love that. The the other the other thing that I love here is that this isn't just I I I don't get to just present this experience to one kind of lead that I have in my database. This is like every lead in my database, every kind of contact.
So my database as a whole, I can drive my organic leads into this. But this works with my portal leads as well. Right? I might be working with realtor dot com or Zillow or homes dot com leads.
All of that can come and really get empowered. I can I can be driving more out of all of my database and lead and kind of business generation activities? Is that right?
[George Mountis] Yeah. Yeah. You you can you you can pull those contacts in, that from these other third party sources. We can look at all the the pieces that they they all the different properties that they looked at, and attributes and and sort of start running those again and bringing them back and and helping them, you know, with with with, you know, a better search experience.
[Joe Skousen] Yeah. The other thing I love is the referral opportunity here. You know, when one of the things with my clients, if I'm working with my clients, referrals, testimonials, there's nothing better than having the best search experience out there to drive more kind of referrals and testimonial activity and those sorts of things to really, like, turn my existing database and set of clients into a into a larger one.
Yeah. How cool.
[Chris McGoldrick] Yeah. Could could I just add to that, Joe? I think as well there's a a very cool sort of human component to this, right? Like just knowing this about your prospects, knowing what they want, being able to actually, you know, kind of speak their language and get on the same page as them straight away with the understanding of, of, of what they want, which this really does create. And I think just adds to what you mentioned about referral opportunities, testimonial opportunities, and just positioning you as the expert when it comes to real estate in your area.
[Joe Skousen] I totally agree, Chris. And I think even just the opportunity to get the repeat business and to grow your network. Right? I was looking at a stat the other day.
I think it's only ninety percent of consumers. They say they'd work with their agent again. Right? But only about fifteen percent actually do.
And so having these enhanced consumer experiences really keeps you top of mind throughout the entire homeownership journey and not just during those transactions. Right? I think there's also another stat that, like, seven percent of your database at any given time is going to transact a house in the next twelve months. So those opportunities are there in your database, but how can you actually get to them and and and get those conversations and experiences that drive your business?
Well, this is, this is pretty sweet.
I know I speak for myself. I'm very excited. I think a lot of other folks are pretty excited out there. So here's the big money question. Julia, George, when does it ship?
Ship it? When does it ship?
[Julia Laurin] Coming soon. We've got the team, the, the the team back there doing all the r and d and the innovation labs. And so looking to start, start our beta in early July, and then it'll be, it'll be turned on in some in some kind of early early customer opportunities, through August as well. So it's coming.
[George Mountis] Yeah. We we've had quite the aggressive timeline. We've had I can honestly say we can all honestly say we have engineering teams around the world working on this around the clock. And, that is where the the aggressive timeline came from and where where Julia is saying that we expect to have something, in our in our customers' hands to start testing and beta testing in in early July. It's pretty exciting.
[Joe Skousen] Super cool. Well, guys, thanks. I feel like I'm I'm on the horn here with some of the smartest people in the space, and so you guys are fantastic. We'll let you get back to shipping this thing, but, thanks again. This is awesome. Good.
Can't wait to get it out there. Thanks, everyone.
Thanks, everyone.