Zillow’s ChatGPT integration forces industry reckoning – RealEstateNews.com
MLSs and other leaders scramble to understand the implications of this first-of-its kind push into the AI space — and how to ensure listing data is protected.
Editor's note: This is part one of a two-part series exploring the newly released ChatGPT app from Zillow, and the questions it has raised within an industry operating under listing display rules that were written at the turn of the century.
Soon after Zillow announced it was the first real estate company to launch an app in ChatGPT, some in the industry responded with alarm.
The core concern was whether the integration violates licensing rules, but the conversations touched on broader issues: How should listing data be used and controlled? How should the industry be thinking about data standards in the context of emerging AI technologies?
In its Oct. 6 announcement, Zillow said ChatGPT users could now add the Zillow app to the popular AI chatbot and explore listings using natural language search. The app — within ChatGPT — can then display property info with links back to the original listings on Zillow.
The integration was designed to bring "simplicity to the home journey within ChatGPT," said David Beitel, Zillow's chief technology officer. The partnership, he added, "puts Zillow at the forefront of generative AI adoption."
Almost immediately, some people wondered whether Zillow was following the terms of its IDX data licensing agreements with multiple listing services.
"Zillow's ChatGPT integration raises the question: what is reasonable control of the display of MLS data?" Leah Ingalsbe, executive vice president of MLS and technology at the Greater Springfield Board of Realtors, wrote on LinkedIn.
"Granted, licensing agreements differ from one MLS to another, but this development offers plenty of food for thought on emerging technologies that were nonexistent when many of our terms of use were penned," Ingalsbe wrote.
She did not respond to a request for further comment.
A Texas real estate agent was more definitive in his stance. Danny Frank, an agent at JLA Realty and a former chair of the Houston Association of Realtors, wrote a blog post expressing his concerns, and in an interview with Real Estate News, said he believes Zillow is in violation of IDX rules.
"The brokers give permission to HAR, and they do not have my permission to share that [listing data] with another third party site, unless everyone has equal access to that," Frank said. "Right now, only Zillow has access to that [ChatGPT integration], and they're using that to their benefit."
Frank has also filed a complaint with HAR, which told Real Estate News, "We are reviewing the matter and will take appropriate action if any issues are identified."
The National Association of Realtors' IDX policy requires all displays of IDX listings to "be under the actual and apparent control of the participant [broker]."
Victor Lund, founding partner and co-CEO of real estate consulting firm WAV Group, has asserted that Zillow is violating this requirement, because its license allows the display of MLS data on Zillow.com and its mobile apps, not on another domain.
Lund contends that, "From the consumer's perspective, they're using ChatGPT … and simply invoking Zillow as a tool inside that environment."
While NAR has not taken a stance on the Zillow integration, the association released a statement on Oct. 21 advising MLSs to consider "whether MLS data is being transmitted to an unauthorized party, if the displaying Participant maintains 'control' over their display, and if the display fulfills the disclosure and display requirements outlined in local IDX rules" when assessing compliance.
NAR also clarified that "the display of MLS data on mobile apps is permitted under the existing IDX policy."
The company went through "a painstaking process" to make sure it was following MLS rules, according to Errol Samuelson, Zillow's chief industry development officer, during a recent Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast.
They also worked with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to ensure IDX data would not be used to train the AI model. "It was a deep collaboration, and they've been very respectful of the different industry rules and data privacy and federal laws and so on," said Josh Weisberg, SVP of AI at Zillow, during the podcast.
Zillow addressed some of the other industry concerns in its FAQ:
Regarding third-party display of data, the FAQ explains that after a user enters a prompt within the app, ChatGPT relays it to Zillow, which "sends a response that is displayed in the Zillow App, but that data does not go to ChatGPT" — in other words, the chatbot itself is not displaying MLS data.
As for the "participant control" requirement, the FAQ says "the Zillow App was built by Zillow to be IDX-compliant and is operated by, and controlled by Zillow, just as on the Zillow website and mobile app."
Real Estate News reached out to Zillow multiple times for further comment and Zillow declined to speak on the record.
Web browsers like Google display links to Zillow listings, but they don't create a downloadable spreadsheet of listing data. Will Zillow's ChatGPT integration provide such a list? Yes.
Real Estate News tested this out by asking the integrated app for listings in a certain market and price range, which it displayed. After prompting the app with a series of additional questions, the app said it could "pull all the data the widget actually loaded" — meaning the data from the Zillow integration or "connector" itself.
Ultimately, it captured data for 100 listings in a downloadable file. (See the exact prompts and responses at the end of this story.)
Lund believes this could open the door for third parties to capture listing data "and [use] it for commercial purposes" or "track and monitor listings" using an external system.
Real Estate News repeated listing searches for several markets and sent the ChatGPT-created spreadsheets to the relevant MLSs. Some declined to comment on the record (Bright MLS, California Regional MLS) or did not respond to requests for comment (Miami Realtors MLS, BeachesMLS, UtahRealEstate.com, GSBOR).
Others, including Stellar MLS, Georgia MLS and NTREIS, said they were "discussing internally" or "still investigating" whether the Zillow-ChatGPT integration complies with IDX policies.
But a spokesperson for North Carolina's Canopy MLS said "the Zillow app remains compliant with our IDX rules at this time," though they declined to comment further.
Lund said he was "not surprised" MLSs weren't talking publicly about the integration. "They're in the middle of trying to understand it," he said. "This is all brand-new information."
Another reason MLSs might be keeping quiet?
"We're in a very litigious time in our industry, more than I've ever seen it," said Russ Cofano, co-founder and principal of Alloy Advisors and a licensed attorney.
"I think people are going to be very cautious about taking approaches that could result in litigation, and doing their due diligence before they try to make any decisions that could create problems for other companies, whether it's Zillow or anybody else," Cofano said.
Cofano wouldn't share a personal opinion on compliance, but he noted that "there may be some unintended consequences from this type of integration, and those things should be addressed so that we don't have easy ways for people to misuse MLS data."
Still, Cofano said he hoped the new app would spur MLSs to reach out to Zillow — not just to gauge compliance, but to learn from their innovation.
"If really this industry is about serving consumers, then we should be applauding Zillow … for trying to do something that exposes authorized listing data to more people in the way that we all know is coming, which is AI search and discovery," Cofano said.
The industry gets "wrapped around the axle on this ownership of data issue, and sometimes … forget what the objective here is, and that is not to own the data, but to facilitate buyers looking at sellers' homes for sale and doing transactions."
Stayed tuned for part two, which explores the problem of applying old rules to new technology and how the industry might evolve.
Here's what happened when we tried the Zillow-ChatGPT app for ourselves — and asked it for the data.
Using an individual, paid ChatGPT account on a web browser, Real Estate News added the Zillow app to the account and asked, "Zillow, please show me for-sale listings in Orlando, Florida, priced between $0 and $400K." ChatGPT displayed a map with red, pinned listings and their prices.
When asked, "Can you get the data used to display the widget I'm seeing? All of it?" ChatGPT replied, "I can pull all the data the widget actually loaded (that's the first page of results—up to ~100 listings with full details like address, price, beds/baths, sqft, lot size, lat/long, home type/status, and the Zillow URL)."
ChatGPT then said it could export those 100 listings and said it would "need to run multiple paged fetches" in order to capture every matching property. It then offered to deliver those first 100 listings as CSV and JSON files. When told to "go ahead," it delivered those downloadable files, providing data for those 100 listings.
When asked, "Where did you get the data for these files?" the reply was "From the Zillow connector powering the embedded map/widget you used here. When you asked for Orlando, FL homes $0–$400k, I called the Zillow tool behind the scenes; it returned the first page of listing payloads (what the widget loaded to render those cards). I saved that exact response as the raw JSON and a flattened CSV."
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