Ethica CEO Judd Hoffman in conversation with real estate leaders, recorded on stage at industry events.
How do you teach an assistant?
Someone in the audience at Inman Connect San Diego asked Judd Hoffman a sharp question: is this a full assistant? Counter offers, requests for repairs, everything?
He didn't oversell it. He described how it's being taught.
"You guys ever hire somebody? What do you do? One task, next task, next task."
That's a more honest answer than the one the question invited, and it's worth noticing what it rules out. A form-filling interface either supports a form or it doesn't. There's no learning curve, because there's nothing to learn. Ship the field mapping and it's finished.
An assistant is different. You hand it one job, you check the work, and when it's reliable you hand it the next. Ethica learned the BRBC (Buyer Representation and Broker Compensation Agreement) first, then the RPA (Residential Purchase Agreement), then the RLA (Residential Listing Agreement), each one until it was right.
The AVID (Agent Visual Inspection Disclosure) is next, and the example Hoffman gave for it is the one that shows what he means by assistant.
Walk a property and you write things down. A pad, a notes app, whatever's nearest. That list then has to be typed up somewhere useful. Hoffman's version: photograph the pad, and every line on it lands in the AVID.
Nobody would call that filling in a form. It's closer to what you'd expect of a person who was there with you, which is the whole distinction.
The full conversation with Phil Hawkins is here.
Quick takes
How is an AI transaction assistant taught?
One task at a time, the way you would onboard a new hire. Ethica learned the BRBC (Buyer Representation and Broker Compensation Agreement) first, then the RPA (Residential Purchase Agreement), then the RLA (Residential Listing Agreement), each one until it was reliable. The AVID (Agent Visual Inspection Disclosure) is next.
What is the difference between an AI assistant and a form filler?
A form filler either supports a form or it doesn't, and there's nothing to learn once the mapping ships. An assistant accumulates capability: it's handed a job, checked, and handed the next one.
What will Ethica do with the AVID (Agent Visual Inspection Disclosure)?
Judd Hoffman described photographing the notepad an agent writes on while walking a property, with every line on it pushing up into the AVID rather than being typed up later.
Sources
- Ethica Blog: Judd Hoffman and Phil Hawkins on Stage at Inman: The full twelve-minute conversation this clip is drawn from
Transcript
169 words
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You said it was a full, like, assistant, so we could do counter offers, requests for repairs, everything?
JUDD HOFFMAN: Great, great question. Like an assistant, we're teaching her slowly but surely. So the way we decided to build this is just like that. You guys ever hire somebody? What do you do? One task, next task, next task.
JUDD HOFFMAN: It's agentic, right? So it's learning. It's learning the BRBC, getting that right. Learning the RPA, getting that right. RLA, getting that right. Next is AVID. We're doing something with the AVID that's really cool.
JUDD HOFFMAN: How many people, when you go through anything in a house, you write stuff down on a pad? Now you can actually take a picture of that memo pad. Every little thing that's on there, it'll actually push up to your AVID. Like it's actually going to be a real assistant. Like AI is something that's so incredibly powerful. If you use it correctly, it'll change your whole life.
