{"id":23317,"date":"2026-06-02T12:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/23317\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:06:13","slug":"daniel-is-a-fake-ai-real-estate-agent-who-is-trying-to-sell-units-to-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/23317\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Daniel’ is a fake AI real estate agent who is trying to sell units to strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

When 612 ABC presenter Ellen Fanning received a phone call from “Daniel”, she sensed something was amiss.<\/p>\n

Daniel introduced himself as a Colliers real estate agent who was reaching out to prospective buyers of a new Gold Coast apartment tower.<\/p>\n

“Are you a person, Daniel?” Ellen asked.<\/p>\n

“I’m actually an AI system designed to help you with your inquiry about Bilinga House,” Daniel replied.<\/p>\n

“So how many bedrooms were you looking for?”<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

When pressed further, Daniel said he was calling on a recorded line and the whole conversation had been taped.<\/p>\n

Before being questioned, Daniel had never disclosed that he was AI nor that he was recording the conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several 612 listeners called in to say they too had been called by “Daniel”.<\/p>\n

Following Ellen’s discussion about the experience on the 612 Drive program, Daniel’s mobile phone number was disconnected.<\/p>\n

Colliers have not responded to 612 ABC’s repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\"Looking<\/p>\n

Colliers has offices throughout Australia. (612 ABC: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

Queensland University of Technology digital media professor Jean Burgess said “Daniel” was a “scary” glimpse of what the future held.<\/p>\n

Professor Burgess said people were increasingly unable to trust what was real and what was artificially generated.<\/p>\n

She said consumers were taking an increasingly dim view of companies that leaned on AI instead of human beings.<\/p>\n

“The human voice and conversation is the gold standard for authentic intimacy between people,” Professor Burgess said.<\/p>\n

“To be breaking these social norms is going to completely backfire on a business doing this sort of thing.”<\/p>\n

Is it even legal?<\/p>\n

Queensland has “one-party consent” laws, which means only one person involved in a conversation needs to agree to have it recorded.<\/p>\n

It means you can record a phone conversation you are having with another person, even without telling them.<\/p>\n

However, lawyers say it is unclear whether an AI is considered a “party” in a conversation, or whether a company is breaking the law by recording these conversations.<\/p>\n

Real Estate Institute of Queensland chief executive Antonia Mercorella said the law was often unclear when it came to AI.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Antonia Mercorella says real estate agent businesses should announce they are using AI bots. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

However, she said real estate agents had, at least, a moral duty to be transparent about their use of AI.<\/p>\n

“It would be appropriate to announce that it is a bot called Daniel who is calling on behalf of someone, but that it is an AI bot,” Ms Mercorella said.<\/p>\n

“We know the law is still catching up when it comes to the use of AI.”<\/p>\n

Fanning will be speaking with Queensland’s leading legal minds on 612 ABC’s Drive program after 4pm today.<\/p>\n

She will be asking them whether “Daniel” is breaking the law by recording phone conversations without telling the other person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When 612 ABC presenter Ellen Fanning received a phone call from “Daniel”, she sensed something was amiss. Daniel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1131,21916,1132,22,21,21917,21914,21915],"class_list":["post-23317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-ai","tag-antonia-mercorella","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-colliers","tag-ellen-fanning","tag-reiq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}