Chat GPT – What Does it Mean for the Property Industry?

On a Sunday night I inputted the address of a property I was valuing into Chat GPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, and within seconds it began to describe line by line the exact location of the building - I was impressed. So were the other million people who have signed up to the service since it launched a couple of months ago.

This might sound like a mundane task to ask of Chat GPT, but one of the time-consuming aspects of writing a valuation report is describing locations. Whilst this might save me 30 minutes, and some sanity, it begs the question: what other areas of human activity can Chat GPT enhance and replace? To understand the answer to this, it’s important to understand how Chat GPT works and where the data is currently originated.

Chat GPT is trained on a large dataset of text called the Common Crawl which is regularly updated. The Common Crawl contains billions of web pages from all over the internet, and it is used to train many language models, including Chat GPT. The information in the Common Crawl is sourced from the internet, and it includes articles, blog posts, forum discussions, and more. The information is as diverse as the internet itself, and it covers a wide range of topics. Chat GPT knowledge cut-off is 2021, which means that it will have incomplete information on any events that have happened after that date.

Chat GPT wrote most of the third paragraph above, so I didn’t have to. But what’s important is that at present, the datasets are already two years out-of-date which reduces their utility. Additionally, the information the AI has cut its teeth on is not up to the quality we would require to write the more complex areas of our reports. However, where things could become very interesting is what happens once Chat GPT has access to all the data portals that property professionals use on a daily basis - CoStar, Lonres, Molior etc.

• Could Chat GPT describe to me the three key developments taking place in SW7?
• Could Chat GPT succinctly describe demographic data in Wigan?
• Could Chat GPT describe the three best comparables for my property?

The commercialisation of Chat GPT is unclear. Microsoft’s whopping rumoured investment of $10bn and its previous $3bn cash injection give us some clues as to how Chat GPT might be commercialised and used in the near future. Integration into Microsoft’s Bing search engine seems to be the main priority at present with Google looking to launch its own version of Chat GPT in what has been a slow response from the search engine behemoth.

It is inevitable that this technology is going to replace some of the tasks performed by property professionals. What’s exciting is that whilst valuers will likely not be writing location descriptions, they will be focusing on much more valuable tasks for clients, such as building relationships, piecing together complex information and advising firms and individuals on the nuances of the UK property market. Will my job be replaced? No, I just won’t be googling the distance from Wigan to central London anymore…