Competence and transparency are being rewarded in today’s real estate market, and the agents who exhibit those traits will flourish in the face of AI, CEO Blake O’Shaughnessy writes.
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Here’s the thing nobody in this industry wants to say out loud: The agent attrition crisis isn’t coming. It’s already here. And AI didn’t cause it.
We’ve spent the better part of two years watching the real estate media cycle spin around artificial intelligence:
- Will it replace agents?
- Will it reshape the MLS?
- Will it end the commission structure as we know it?
Valid questions. Interesting debates. But while we’ve been having them, the real story has been unfolding in plain sight, and it’s a lot less glamorous than a robot apocalypse.
The uncomfortable truth is that a massive percentage of licensed agents in this country are not meaningfully active. They’re not closing deals. They’re not building client relationships. They’re holding licenses and paying dues and, in many cases, doing very little with either one.
The numbers don’t lie, but nobody reads them
National Association of Realtors membership has slipped from a peak of 1.6 million in late 2022 to around 1.4 million now, with some analysts projecting it could fall to 1.2 million by 2026. The industry has been shedding agents steadily for a while.
Tech didn’t trigger that exodus. The market did. Low inventory, high rates and, here’s the part that stings a little, consumers who simply weren’t confident they were getting their money’s worth.
That last part matters more than people want to admit.
Tech isn’t the threat. Transparency is
For decades, real estate agents held a structural advantage: information. They knew what homes were selling for. They knew the comps, the inventory trends, the off-market deals. Consumers didn’t. That gap was where agent value lived.
That gap is closing. Fast.
Zillow, Redfin, public records, neighborhood data platforms, and new proptech tools mean the average buyer or seller today walks into a conversation with more market information than an agent had access to 20 years ago. That’s not a bad thing. It’s actually great for the industry, if agents respond the right way.
The problem is that a lot of them haven’t.
When your value proposition was built on access, on being the gatekeeper, and the gates are wide open, you have to completely rethink what you’re selling. Some agents have done that. A lot of them haven’t. And that’s where the real vulnerability sits. Not in a chatbot. In the inability to articulate why a consumer should pay for their help.
So who actually wins?
The agents who are going to thrive in the next cycle aren’t the ones with the best CRM or the slickest website. They’re the ones who can sit across from a buyer or seller and answer three questions honestly and specifically:
- What am I actually doing for you?
- What does it cost?
- And why does it cost that?
That’s it. That’s the whole game now. It means saying: the tech handles listings, tours, and documents. I handle pricing strategy, negotiation, and protecting you when something goes sideways. This is the fee. This is the value.
The NAR settlement changed the commission conversation forever. Buyer agent compensation is negotiable. Sellers are thinking harder about what they’re paying and why. The old playbook, where the fee structure was baked into the transaction, and nobody questioned it, is gone.
Agents who embrace that shift, who can unbundle their services, justify their pricing, or simply be radically clear about what they bring to the table, will do fine. Better than fine, probably.
The ones who can’t explain their value? That’s where the real replacement risk lives. And it has nothing to do with artificial intelligence.
This isn’t the end. It’s a sorting mechanism
Let me be clear about something. This is not an extinction event for real estate agents. People still need help buying and selling homes. Transactions are still complicated. Negotiations still require judgment and experience. The human element in real estate isn’t going anywhere.
But the market is finally, finally, starting to reward the agents who deserve to be rewarded. The ones who are competent. The ones who are transparent. The ones who can walk into a room and make a compelling case for their own existence in the deal.
For too long, this industry protected mediocrity. Low barriers to entry meant anyone could get a license. High commission structures meant even underperforming agents could cobble together a living without ever getting good at the job. Both of those things are changing thanks to AI and proptech.
The agents reading this right now who are doing the work, who are building real expertise, who know their markets cold, who treat every transaction like it actually matters, you’re not the ones who should be worried. But you do need to be deliberate.
If you want to survive and thrive in this market, there are a few non-negotiables.
- Get radically honest about pricing. Use real data, not optimism. If AI tools, AVMs and predictive analytics are showing you something different than your gut, interrogate it. The days of buying listings with inflated numbers are over. Price it right on Day 1 and explain exactly how you got there.
- Automate everything that does not require judgment. Scheduling, follow-ups, document prep, status updates, marketing workflows. Clients do not need you to manually send calendar invites; they need you focused on strategy and negotiation.
- Make your compensation make sense. Be prepared to explain what you do, what it costs, and why it is worth it in plain English. If you cannot articulate your value without hiding behind tradition, you have work to do.
- Over-communicate with transparency. Share comps early. Walk through fee structures line by line. Show net sheets before they ask. Use technology to surface information instead of holding it back.
- Lean into advisory work. Clients can find listings on their own. They cannot replicate your experience in risk assessment, contract structure, timing strategy and negotiation psychology. Double down there.
That is what adaptation looks like. For everyone else? The threat was never AI. It was always the truth.
Blake O’Shaughnessy is co-founder and CEO at Ownii. Connect with him on Instagram and LinkedIn.
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