{"id":108592,"date":"2026-07-16T19:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/108592\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:04:09","slug":"ai-recommended-these-agents-we-asked-them-why-and-whether-it-matters-rismedia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/108592\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Recommended These Agents. We Asked Them Why\u2014And Whether It Matters \u2014 RISMedia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: this is the first of a two-part series on AI recommendations for agents. Look for part two in the coming days.<\/p>\n

When a prospective buyer asks someone they trust who is the best real estate agent to help them transact, you want your name to be the first one mentioned.<\/p>\n

What happens when that trustworthy source is an AI?<\/p>\n

As consumers are increasingly relying on ChatGPT, Google\u2019s Gemini or other general-purpose LLMs for everyday advice, many in the industry say that getting your name in AI queries is vital to grow your business. Some companies and consultants promise they have the secret sauce that (for a price) will make sure you get recommended by AI every time.<\/p>\n

But with how new and fast-moving these technologies are, is it really possible to parse out the process of becoming AI\u2019s favorite agent? And maybe just as importantly, is it really all that helpful or necessary, when so many agents build their business off referrals, and consumers continue to rely on more human networks (especially when the stakes are high)?<\/p>\n

RISMedia asked multiple AI models to recommend the top agent in particular markets that are currently rated as \u201chot.\u201d<\/a> Our journalists then reached out to these agents and asked how they managed to earn those recommendations, and to find out whether the recommendations had any measurable impact on their business.<\/p>\n

Persistence pays off<\/p>\n

\"\"Mark Siwiec leads Elysian Homes by Mark Siwiec & Associates, in Rochester, New York. AI searches produce his name at the top of most lists. He finds it amusing considering how he\u2019s tried to gain social media traction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s really funny is I had always thought that it was important to have an online presence so that you would derive clients through Google searches, through search engine optimization,\u201d he says. \u201cWe got a website and would pay somebody $10,000 a year so that on page one of a Google search somebody would see my name or my brokerage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Siwiec noted that the results were just okay. A subsequent Facebook presence didn\u2019t produce much traction. But feeling that he was on the right track, a social media coordinator was hired.<\/p>\n

\u201cReels were created for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook,\u00a0 LinkedIn and YouTube,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve also got my own YouTube channel. On top of that, I\u2019ve got a blog that I write once a month and mail out to a database of about 40,000 people. It appears on our website. Additionally, it\u2019s in the Rochester Business Journal once a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing these things trying to have a presence on the internet. But it turns out that all these things were providing very, very little ROI. But it turns out that they were exactly the recipe that one needs to be the number one person that different LLMs (Large Language Models) or AIs are actually spitting out and spitting back when consumers are looking for the best agent in Rochester, New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Siwiec notes that once a week he gets a call from somebody saying, \u201cHey, I\u2019d like for you to list my property. I\u2019d like you to come over and I want to interview you.\u201d He thinks that if not for internet searches that produce his name it would be more like once every two weeks, three weeks or even a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy executive assistant takes all the incoming calls; he is responsible for taking in all of our leads,\u201d says Siwiec. \u201cAnd we ask very purposefully, \u2018How did you find out about Mark?\u2019 Oftentimes it\u2019s, \u2018He was referred to me by my friend or my aunt or my sister.\u2019 Every once in a while it would be through a Google search. But now once a week it\u2019s through ChatGPT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going about your business<\/p>\n

\"AI\"Darin Greear, a real estate agent with Long & Foster Blacksburg, VA \u2013 Realty, serving the western Virginia region and boasting a range of specialties from first-time homebuyers to historic homes. Greear has won numerous accolades for his work, including recently ranking as the No. 2 Long & Foster agent in 2025\u2014and, according to ChatGPT, Gemini, and CoPilot, he is the No. 1 agent to go to if you\u2019re looking to buy in the Blacksburg metro area.<\/p>\n

The AIs cited Greear\u2019s 2025 numbers, specifically 150 closed sides and about 48 million in sales volume, which he corroborated as at least \u201cgenerally correct\u201d in conversation with RISMedia. Greear also says he is \u201cnot surprised\u201d these AIs named him as the top agent in Blacksburg, but that doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s been focusing on finding leads through high AI rankings.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of my business is referral-based,\u201d Greear explains. \u201cA lot of people refer me because I take care of all my clients and whether it\u2019s a $100,000 house or a million dollar house, I take care of all of them or try to. So I mean, that\u2019s just the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of my clients will, I\u2019m sure, give me reviews online and that probably helps. And then the sales data help with the New River Valley Association of Realtors probably has that out there on who sells what,\u201d Greear says, talking about his own approach to digital outreach. \u201cAnd it\u2019s probably all off of numbers is the main thing I would think, don\u2019t you imagine?\u201d<\/p>\n

Greear embraces AI as a \u201cgood tool\u201d\u2014\u201cEverybody is using (AI) and I use it as well, it\u2019s going to get more popular too the more we go along. And it\u2019s going to hurt some people\u2019s jobs of course, but it\u2019s good in real estate in certain circumstances for sure. And yeah, you can get some good recommendations, but it\u2019s not always correct. I mean, just like anybody\u2019s not always correct.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he also strikes a more hesitant tone on the idea of relying on AI for everything, or that an AI can offer accurate information to the same extent a real estate professional can.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people were even talking about asking AI how to make an offer on a house,\u201d Greear claims. \u201c(AI) just talk in general terms. They don\u2019t know specifics enough to know if a seller needs to sell quickly, how long the house has been on the market and get more information from the buyers, the listing agent or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesse Williams contributed to this reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: this is the first of a two-part series on AI recommendations for agents. Look for part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24,405,4178,56102,7537,580,416,2408,40635,56103,56104,56105,56106,56107,56108],"class_list":["post-108592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agentic-ai","tag-ai","tag-ai-agents","tag-ai-in-real-estate","tag-ai-real-estate-agent","tag-artificial-intelligence-agents","tag-chatgpt","tag-copilot","tag-gemini","tag-mls","tag-mlsnewsfeed","tag-mlsspotlight","tag-real-estate-geo","tag-real-estate-lead-generation","tag-real-estate-seo","tag-top-ai-agent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}