We are delighted to introduce a timely, pragmatic new training suite for California licensees: Artificial Intelligence Training: Harnessing AI While Managing Risk™.

This premium training fully illustrates how to safely augment your practice with AI-powered tools while maintaining absolute regulatory compliance — without sacrificing human intuition. Over the coming weeks, the firsttuesday Journal will feature exclusive excerpts from this multi-media suite.

Our opening installment explores how licensees deploy AI in their daily practice today, alongside critical Department of Real Estate (DRE) guidance for staying compliant.

The complete, video-focused Artificial Intelligence Training™ is available at no additional charge to students enrolling in any firsttuesday licensing or renewal course — a FREE service to our students. Or it may be separately purchased for $35.

Exclusively Californian: specifically firsttuesday.

Machine learning in a human industry

In an industry built on handshakes and face-to-face trust, a new player has entered the room.

It doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t have a license. And it can write a property description in under two seconds, among other things.

With an industry as human and personal as real estate, an agent’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate their work might seem like science fiction. But with recent breakthroughs in machine learning, that fiction has quickly become a reality for tech-savvy agents.

Responsibility for use of AI-generated content ultimately comes to rest with the provider — brokers and agents.

In this series, we’ll cover the Department of Real Estate’s (DRE’s) guidance for staying compliant when AI enters the equation. We’ll analyze how you manage the risks presented by its use.

Rather than get left behind by the AI evolution, forward-looking agents embrace AI to enhance their practice, not replace it. When used thoughtfully, AI puts an agent on top of any issue with a brief or lengthy query — AI is a powerful resource with nearly infinite potential.

Yet in a landmark licensee advisory, the DRE in 2026 cautioned agents who use an AI response to a query in their practice to always review the AI material for compliance with real estate law.

Surprise — AI is a bit under-trained in principles licensees must adhere to, like honesty and ethics.

From grunt work to framework — AI’s daily footprint

First, let’s go over how real estate licensees use AI in their practice. Real estate licensees use AI in:

  • advertising, including crafting property for sale descriptions, generating social media posts to solicit clientele and even enhancing photos to attract buyers to properties for sale;
  • lead generation by managing website inquiries, often through chatbots;
  • property valuation, specifically by automating valuation models;
  • transaction and document review, including summarizing important documents, tracking deadlines and reviewing documents for errors;
  • property management, by screening tenants, evaluating rent prices and making maintenance predictions; and
  • mortgage servicing, including using AI to analyze borrower behavior by calling on historical data to ultimately reduce defaults.

While use of AI makes a real estate agent more efficient by eliminating some of their mundane tasks, the DRE cautions against unchecked reliance on AI activity. Agents must review the AI material, edit it to correct errors in judgment, and verify it as compliant with real estate law.

Further, when an agent behaves like a low-tier AI chatbot — copying and pasting generic property descriptions, texting boilerplate scripts, and churning out publicly available data — they are actively training the public to replace the need for an agent. Consumers will logically think, “Why am I paying a 3% broker fee when I can type the exact same prompt into ChatGPT and get the same advice and guidance for free?”

AI operates on probability, not property law. It does not understand that “filling in the blanks” with outside ideas often creates a narrative that is fundamentally incompatible with a licensee’s legal and ethical conduct.

AI use in real estate can save time and boost efficiency. But it never replaces a licensed broker and agent bound by fiduciary duties and trained in real estate law and practice.

Remember: When you act like an AI chatbot, you will be replaced by one.

Editor’s note — Stay tuned for the next excerpt of Artificial Intelligence Training: Harnessing AI While Managing Risk™.

Get the full training suite today — FREE — with any enrollment in our Agent Licensing, Broker Licensing, DRE CE or NMLS CE courses.

Purchase the training separately as a standalone masterclass for $35.