As AI rapidly reshapes how real estate agents work, multiple listing services are taking on a new role: tech validators.
That’s according to Liz Sturrock, head of MLS and innovation at Miami Realtors, who says the organization is focused less on building its own AI tools and more on ensuring that the ones agents use are accurate, compliant and safe.
“What we do at Miami Realtors is we make sure that any MLS tech solutions that we partner with are safe for our members to use,” Sturrock told Inman in a recent interview. “We want to make sure they remain fair housing-compliant, that copyrights are protected, and that agents are indemnified for any issues associated with that.”
The approach reflects a shift across the MLS landscape as AI adoption accelerates and risks around accuracy, bias and compliance grow alongside it.
Consumer expectations push AI adoption
Sturrock said that agents are primarily using AI to write listing descriptions, create marketing content, automate communications, build comparative market analyses, and assist with virtual staging and design.
“ChatGPT is absolutely number one,” Sturrock said, noting that agents are also experimenting with tools like Claude and Gemini alongside MLS-integrated products.
She added that the AI adoption rate in Miami is particularly high. This is partly driven by Miami’s evolution into a tech and finance hub and by rising consumer expectations for seamless, digital-first experiences.
“Consumers don’t want to be signing paper and mailing checks,” she said. “They want everything to be as seamless as it is in other parts of their lives.”
AI helps agents capture and hold buyer interest
Rather than building proprietary AI systems, Miami Realtors has focused on partnerships.
Among the tools offered to members are Sidekick, a ChatGPT-based assistant that integrates with Google Workspace and MLS data to automate communication, scheduling and CMA creation. There’s also Infinityy, an AI-powered virtual tour platform designed to increase listing engagement.
These tools are often offered through freemium or discounted models for members, lowering the barrier to adoption. The results, Sturrock said, are already visible, especially on the consumer side.
“We know that agents who use Infinityy tours, their consumers are much more engaged,” she said. “They’re spending up to 12 minutes interacting with those listings.”
That level of engagement — in some cases four times higher than traditional listings — points to one of the clearest near-term benefits of AI in real estate: capturing and holding buyer attention.
Faster tools, higher stakes
Despite the rapid uptake, Sturrock emphasized that the biggest risks tied to AI aren’t technical but regulatory and ethical. Fair housing compliance remains a central concern, particularly when agents use AI to generate listing descriptions.
“You can’t say a home is good for families, right? fIt’s great for everybody,” Sturrock said. “And so we urge our agents as they’re writing listing descriptions to talk about the property and not the people.”
Miami Realtors has implemented systems that flag potentially non-compliant language as agents input listing data, but Sturrock said education remains critical. Agents are also advised to verify any AI-generated content before publishing it.
“It’s impossible to say there are never hallucinations,” she said. “We always advise our members to fact-check anything AI produces before they put it under their own name.”
Virtual staging presents similar risks. While AI-powered design tools are widely used, agents must avoid misrepresenting properties, a requirement that hasn’t changed with the advent of new technology. “The rules haven’t changed just because the tech is better,” Sturrock said.
As AI tools proliferate, Sturrock also cautioned against adopting technology for its own sake. “In some cases, it’s great. In others, it’s like when everything had a blockchain or crypto label on it,” she said. “AI for AI’s sake doesn’t make sense.”
Sturrock said the focus should remain on tools that make agents more efficient and effective, not simply more automated. “When it helps agents be faster, better at their jobs, and focus on what they do best, that’s where AI really adds value,” she said.
Multilingual tools expand agents’ reach to global buyers
One of the most significant shifts underway is how AI tools are leveraging MLS data directly. Platforms like Sidekick use MLS information to generate CMAs, automate responses and streamline workflows, effectively turning MLS datasets into the backbone of AI-powered agent tools. That dynamic could reinforce the MLS’s long-term relevance, even as new layers of technology are built on top of it.
In Miami, AI’s impact is also tied to the market’s global nature. Florida accounts for one in five international home sales in the U.S., and half of those transactions take place in the Miami metro area, according to the MIAMI Association of Realtors’ 2025 Profile of International Home Buyers. In South Florida, foreign buyers represented 15 percent of total residential dollar volume in 2025 — seven times the national average of 2 percent and more than triple Florida’s statewide share of 5 percent.
That dynamic makes multilingual capabilities essential. Some AI-powered tools, like Infinityy, now support more than 75 languages, enabling agents to communicate with buyers in real-time, regardless of location.
“If a buyer is on their couch at night looking at listings, they can ask questions in their language and get responses immediately,” Sturrock said.
Combined with global data-sharing initiatives — including partnerships that distribute listings to hundreds of thousands of agents worldwide — the technology is helping expand agents’ reach far beyond local markets.
New tech, but enduring standards
While AI is accelerating workflows and improving engagement, Sturrock said it’s not replacing agents. Instead, it’s pushing them toward a more data-driven, advisory role.
Tools like Realtor Property Resource (RPR), for example, now use AI to generate market reports and even help agents prepare for local government meetings or development discussions. “It makes the agent the expert,” she said.
As AI adoption grows, MLSs are emerging as a critical control point in the ecosystem, not as developers of the technology, but as curators of it. And while the tools themselves continue to evolve, one thing remains constant: the responsibility still falls on agents. “Technology changes,” Sturrock said. “But the need to be accurate, ethical and compliant doesn’t.”
