What Does AI Say About You? How Luxury Agents Can Check
10/23/2026
In this episode of Estate of Mind: The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate, Tami Simms and co-host Jack Miller talk with Andrew, founder and CEO of Tobe Agency and a longtime partner of The Institute, about why AI recommends one luxury agent over another and what agents can do about it. His most practical advice is an audit any agent can run in an afternoon.
Tami works largely by referral and repeat business, and she isn’t looking for more leads. But when someone she’s been referred to looks her up, she wants AI to “tell them the true story.”
So she volunteered as a test case. When Andrew Hong searched for her by name, the results were good, with some inconsistencies and a few gaps. When he asked who is a great luxury realtor in St. Petersburg, Florida, she was, in her words, “nowhere, absolutely nowhere, zero.”
Being Found and Being Described Accurately Are Different Problems
Search engines used to return ten blue links. AI assistants filter: they draw on many sources, factor in what they know about the person asking and often return only two or three recommendations. For a considered purchase like a home, Andrew expects clients to do much of their research this way.
That’s why he frames AI visibility as two questions: “One is, are you getting found? The second is, if you’re getting found, is it saying the right thing?”
The second question matters most to established agents. “The most successful agents tend to have the worst websites,” Andrew says, because their business comes from referrals and local reputation. But a referred client may now skip the review sites and simply ask their assistant, “Tell me everything you know about” the agent they were given. If the answer says you’ve been in business for years but can’t say what you specialize in, Andrew notes, “that’s not going to inspire a lot of confidence.”
Jack already sees it: some clients tell him ChatGPT pulled up his name, and some sellers use it to check his recommendations.
Related Reading: How Top Agents Create Repeat Clients and Referral Champions explains how to give past clients a clear, repeatable way to describe what you do.
How to Run Your Own AI Visibility Audit
Andrew’s audit uses two kinds of prompts. Steps 3 and 5 are additions that make the results easier to compare over time.
- Ask all three major assistants about yourself. Use ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, ideally the free versions in a private or incognito mode so the assistant’s memory of you doesn’t shape the answer. Ask each to tell you about yourself as a luxury agent in your market, and check whether it’s accurate.
- Ask the question your clients ask. Search for the best luxury agent in your market or community, then try narrower versions: a neighborhood, a property type or the kind of client you serve.
- Run each prompt more than once. Answers can change from one session to the next, so look for patterns rather than reacting to a single response.
- Study the agents who appear. Review the profiles of the competitors AI names. Then share them with your assistant and ask Andrew’s question: “Why is it mentioning them over me?” What are they doing that you’re not?
- Save what you find. Record the date, the prompts and the answers so you can repeat the audit later and measure the change.
It won’t be as precise as a professional audit, Andrew says, but “it’ll get you like 80%.”
What the Results Usually Reveal
In Andrew’s view, AI’s choice comes down to two things: whether you’re a trustworthy source, and whether there’s enough information to show how you differ from other agents in your market.
Too Little Proof Beyond Your Own Website
AI tries to corroborate what you say about yourself with third-party sources, such as reviews and testimonials on Zillow or your Google Business Profile, and designation organizations. Andrew gives the most weight to sources that check your record: anywhere “that requires you to submit documentation to verify what you’ve done” is “a higher level authority source to the AI.”
That’s where professional credentials earn their place. The CLHMS™ designation and GUILD™ and GUILD Elite™ recognition each require documented closed luxury transactions, and members have a profile AI can check. “You can say you’re a luxury agent all day long,” Andrew says, but a verifiable membership lets AI confirm it. Across the roughly 75 in-depth audits he has run, he says The Institute came up as an authoritative third-party source in about 80 to 85% of them. His advice to designees is simple: mention it.
Related Reading: How Luxury Agents Get Found When High-Net-Worth Buyers Ask ChatGPT is Andrew’s guide to the four signals AI weighs before it recommends an agent.
A Description Too Broad to Repeat
The second gap is differentiation. “Proactive,” “go-getter” and “I know my market” are, in Andrew’s words, “table stakes.” Every agent says them, so they give AI no reason to choose you.
His example is a Zillow profile. The worst thing you can do, he says, is “just say I’m a luxury specialist in” your city. A stronger version names the clients you serve and what you do for them: a luxury specialist for buyers relocating from Utah and the Northeast for coastal living, with a focus on pre-construction condos in St. Pete’s most popular areas.
Most agents object that this is too narrow. Andrew’s answer is to treat the internet as a channel for one specific type of client. In Alpine resort markets such as Telluride and Jackson Hole, he advises agents to aim their online presence at buyers from feeder markets, since most sellers there are locals who hire someone they know. “Why waste your AI juice,” he asks, “on something that no one is searching for?”
Related Reading: Luxury Real Estate Niches: How Specialization Can Be Your Competitive Advantage explains how to choose a focus without closing the door on other business.
Turn What You Find Into a Three-to-Six-Month Plan
Start with what Andrew calls “the boring stuff.” One of the first checks AI runs is whether your name, address and phone number match across the internet, and it’s where agents fall down most often in his audits.
For real estate, AI checks roughly a dozen sources, including Google Maps, Apple Maps, Zillow, FastExpert, the Better Business Bureau, Yelp, The Institute and the footer of your own website. Small differences count. Andrew says “#2C” in one place and “Suite 2C” in another can count against you. Agents who have changed brokerages are especially exposed, because an old profile page may still list them at a previous firm’s address. Ask the brokerage to remove that page or set it to noindex, and update your Google Business Profile if you’ve moved offices.
Then work through the rest of the list: reviews on sites that verify your production, a written specialty used consistently across your profiles, and website content that answers clients’ questions. When Tami started working with her mother almost 25 years ago, her mother’s pre-listing materials always included a sheet of questions sellers should ask every other agent they interviewed. FAQ content is the modern version, and it gives AI more context about how you work.
Finally, use AI to plan the work. Tell your assistant what the audit found and how much time and budget you have, then ask how to tackle it over the next three to six months: what to do first, whether you need a developer, designer or SEO specialist, and what it might cost. “Sometimes just finding the right person is actually half the battle,” Andrew says.
When the plan is complete, run the same prompts again and compare the answers with your saved results. Your reputation now has to be communicated as effectively online as it is in person, and the audit is how you find out whether it is.
Listen to the Full Episode
Listen to this episode of Estate of Mind to hear Tami’s audit results, Andrew’s advice on corroboration and branding, and what Jack is hearing from clients who use ChatGPT.
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