In a recent Proptech Pulse Real Estate Business podcast episode, Juliet Helmke interviewed Josh Symons, head of real estate solutions at CoreLogic, following the announcement of CoreLogic’s RiTA winning the inaugural Australia AI award for real estate innovation.
During his conversation, Josh shared his insights on the transformative power of artificial intelligence in the real estate sector the untapped value within real estate agencies' vast data resources, and discussed how AI tools can unlock this potential to drive better outcomes for agencies and their teams.
Click below to listen to the podcast or continue to read the summary of the key topics discussed.
What does this award win represent for your team, particularly about RiTA and its impact?
Josh: Winning this award reflects more than just the accolade itself—it’s a testament to the dedication of our teams and the trust our customers place in us. The prop-tech landscape is complex, with many players involved, so achieving recognition like this wouldn’t be possible without the partners who enable us to do what we do.
Our team has incorporated generative AI capabilities into RiTA and, more broadly, across CoreLogic’s ecosystem. For our real estate clients, particularly in the segment we serve, products like RiTA significantly drive success. This recognition validates the extensive time, effort, and resources that have brought these innovations to market. Beyond the technology, it also highlights the importance of educating and supporting our users to ensure they realise the total value of these investments.
This change is pivotal for us as we plan for the next three years. One of our key goals is for the company to deliver AI-first products that provide class-leading user experiences. This win is a vote of confidence in our direction, focusing on UI/UX design, a scalable technology stack, and a world-class team to deliver meaningful outcomes for our customers.
What makes RiTA stand out, and how does it help estate agents work lives easier?
Josh: RiTA has become a cornerstone of our broader suite of real estate solutions. While we have a strong heritage in property research and data, the business has made significant investments to expand beyond that, and RiTA epitomises this transformation.
At its core, RiTA is helping real estate agents nurture relationships at scale, building trust and establishing them as leaders in their markets. Estate agents face a unique challenge—they must market themselves to secure listings before marketing those listings to achieve successful outcomes for their clients. This dual responsibility is highly demanding.
RiTA enables agencies to leverage the first-party data they collect, transforming it into actionable insights. Features like smart call lists allow agents to prioritise meaningful connections with relevant contacts. RiTA also includes industry-leading two-way contextual SMS capabilities, which help agents communicate efficiently with their databases at scale. With the integration of generative AI, these interactions are more personalised, ensuring that agents can build relationships more effectively. In summary, RiTA is a product designed to nurture all stages of customer conversations.
How should business leaders think about the value of their data in the context of AI?
Josh: Data holds value only when it drives actionable insights. For real estate agents, the ability to build relationships has been redefined by digital transformation, which emphasises trust and transparency. Collecting first-party data is now widely understood as a critical strategy. However, it is not enough to collect data—you must maintain its quality and use it to take meaningful actions.
The goal is to ensure that data is actionable. Being actionable means maintaining accurate records, securing consent for communication, and leveraging insights to nurture relationships effectively. RiTA facilitates this by enabling agents to connect with their databases in ways that build trust and deliver results, ensuring that the data they hold is a true asset.
Does scale matter when it comes to leveraging data effectively?
Josh: Scale is not the most critical factor; data quality is equally, if not more, important than quantity. Large databases often contain incomplete or outdated information, which diminishes their value. Ensuring that your database is accurate and that you have the consent to contact individuals is essential.
RiTA emphasises the importance of quality and compliance, helping agencies nurture relationships with relevant, accurate, and actionable data. By focusing on these fundamentals, even smaller businesses can derive significant value from their databases.
We work with large agencies managing significant volumes of data and individual agents using RiTA in smaller-scale operations. While the volume of data varies widely, the key takeaway is that the ability to utilise data—and ensure it is consistently used—is far more critical. For instance, when you obtain consent to stay in touch with a contact, following through on that commitment is vital. Letting that connection go dormant for years and attempting to revive it later often leads to poor outcomes.
Consistent, relevant communication helps to unlock the value of your data. This value is where tools like RiTA excel, enabling agents to establish and nurture relationships through regular, meaningful touchpoints. Many of us can relate to receiving an email a year after subscribing to something and immediately choosing to unsubscribe because the connection has become irrelevant.
Ultimately, it comes down to prioritising data quality, completeness, and consistent action over sheer volume. That focus ensures your data remains valuable for building trust and long-term success.
How can AI help real estate professionals have more meaningful conversations without losing the human touch?
Josh: This is something we discuss extensively across our teams—whether it's product, engineering, or go-to-market. One key point is addressing the perception that AI dehumanises interactions. The reality is the opposite when done correctly.
In real estate, professionals face a challenge: while the average person can maintain 150 meaningful relationships, agents and agencies often need to manage thousands within their markets. AI helps scale these connections while ensuring they remain meaningful.
At CoreLogic, we embrace the philosophy of being "digital first, human when it matters." AI allows professionals to consistently deliver value—like property updates or market insights—to their clients. This type of offering builds trust and relevance. Then, during critical moments like negotiations or sales, the human touch ensures emotional and meaningful interactions.
By making interactions scalable, consistent, and relevant, AI enhances—not replaces—the human role. It allows agents to focus their energy on moments where personal connection is most critical.
Should data management be a leader’s responsibility or a team-wide focus?
Josh: This is a team-wide responsibility. Everyone in a real estate business contributes to data collection, cleansing, and maintenance. Leaders must set the strategy, but every team member plays a role in ensuring its success.
In 2025, agencies need to assess their current data management practices. Start by understanding your data, identifying gaps, and implementing collection, cleansing, and ongoing maintenance processes. For instance, agents should consciously gather data during frequent client interactions, ensuring compliance with privacy laws and regulations.
Using the right tools, such as AI-driven platforms, can maximise the value of your data. However, the ultimate goal is trust. Transparent communication about collecting and using data builds client trust and aligns with legal requirements.
How is CoreLogic using AI to deliver solutions for real estate professionals?
At CoreLogic, we believe in practicing what we preach. AI has been a critical part of our business strategy, allowing us to scale efficiently while improving customer satisfaction.
For example, our service ethos, "digital first, human when it matters," has enabled us to engage with customers on a massive scale proactively. This focus has led to a significant boost in metrics like NPS, which has remained consistently high this year at +49 and at least the mid-40s for the past four years.
By applying these principles, we’ve proven that AI-driven solutions can scale operations and improve customer experiences. As we move forward, we aim to embed AI-first thinking into all our products, ensuring they solve real-world problems for agents and property managers.
Our goal for the next three years is to be recognised for delivering AI-first products that combine cutting-edge technology with trusted and independent property data. This ongoing investment reflects our commitment to driving innovation in real estate and solving existing problems for our customers into 2025 and beyond.
Can you tell us about the new updates and integrations you've worked on recently for RiTA?
Josh: This year, a significant update has been the integration of generative AI into RiTA. This development has dramatically enhanced the conversational capabilities of the platform, making it capable of more contextual and multilingual conversations. It's also improved understanding of Aussie slang and the use of emojis, which is essential for SMS communication.
In addition, we've focused on underlying technology to ensure the scalability of our product and enhance the customer experience in the future. It's essential to meet our customers where they are and where they have chosen to invest, so our renewed integrations with partners like MRI and REAPIT have been a big focus for us. The MRI partnership includes our integration with Box and Dice, specifically their lead flow capability, which enhances lead management. We're also excited about our upcoming integration with LockedOn, and we have plans to expand these integrations further next year.
What can customers expect in 2025, and what excites you the most about the year ahead?
Josh: The most exciting aspect of 2025 will be our increased focus on customer feedback. We plan to listen more closely to our customer’s pain points and apply those insights to improve our products. We need to act with precision and do what we do well. This focus will be especially true in AI, ensuring that our solutions work effortlessly and provide real value to our customers. While it may seem simple, we're genuinely excited about this commitment to delivering excellence in the core areas that matter most to our customers.
CoreLogic Australia