AI & The Future of Home Inspections

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming industries worldwide, and home inspection is squarely in its sights. In this thought-provoking conversation with returning guest Preston Kincaid, we explore the coming AI revolution that threatens to fundamentally alter how home inspections are conducted—and what separates the inspectors who will thrive from those who won't survive.

The parallels to travel agents in 1999 are striking. When airlines introduced online booking, travel agencies nearly vanished overnight. Yet today, premium travel advisors continue to thrive by providing exceptional, relationship-based services that algorithms can't replicate. Home inspectors face this exact crossroads, with $99 AI inspection services already emerging and technology advancing rapidly.

Preston and I dig into what truly matters: creating meaningful experiences rather than simply generating reports. We challenge the industry mindset that views client attendance during inspections as a distraction rather than an opportunity to build trust and demonstrate value. Those relationships—not technical expertise alone—will determine which inspectors command premium prices in the AI era.

The future will likely see a market divided between budget AI-powered services and premium human consultations. Mediocrity won't survive; inspectors must decide whether they're report generators or professional consultants. By focusing on client experience, embracing technology as a tool rather than a threat, and continuously improving their service offerings, forward-thinking inspectors can position themselves to thrive despite—or perhaps because of—technological disruption.

Whether you're a seasoned inspector concerned about industry changes or a homebuyer wondering about the future of professional home assessments, this episode provides crucial insights into the technological revolution transforming real estate services. Listen now to understand how human connection will remain the ultimate competitive advantage in a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence.

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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Preston Kincaid
• 1:31 AI is Coming for Home Inspectors
• 6:18 Travel Agents vs Home Inspectors
• 10:47 Client Relationships as Competitive Advantage
• 17:11 How AI is Already Changing Inspections
• 23:21 The Value of Having Clients Present
• 30:34 Raising the Bar in Home Inspection
• 37:27 The Future: Human Touch vs Technology
• 43:15 Final Thoughts on Surviving AI Disruption

Transcript

Ian Robertson 
Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk everyone. Today we have on a repeat guest and someone who doesn't need an introduction. Preston Kincaid, how are you?

Preston Kincaid 
I'm doing great, man. Thanks for having me on and I'm excited about this one, because this is going to be controversial. This is going to be supercharged. This podcast is going to resonate with everybody, some people not well, some people are going to love it. So this is going to be a good one.

Ian Robertson 
This actually came from a podcast that we had posted, I don't know, three, four weeks ago, maybe not even that long. And we talked about, should the client be on the home inspection with us? I was actually pretty blown away. And if anybody wants to go check our YouTube channel, even some home buyers chimed in on the conversation about, there's a lot of our industry that said, you know, I don't want the buyer there. It distracts me. One person used the illustration of and I forget which form it was like, listen, if I go to get a physical, my doctor doesn't put me under, saying you're going to distract me, and then I wake up and he tells me what's wrong.

Preston Kincaid 
Right.

Ian Robertson 
I wouldn't go to that doctor. But it was a whole big discussion back and forth. Everybody knows my opinion on it because I posted the podcast, but you chimed in. And you said, these are the things that are going to either, I forget how you worded it, but either kill us in the upcoming AI disruption, or set us apart in the upcoming AI disruption.

Preston Kincaid 
Hey, listen, man, this is going to be literally survival for home inspectors. It is going to be one of the things that, and make no bones about it, everybody. AI is coming for you. AI is coming for everybody. It is going to touch and disrupt just about every single profession and industry that exists. The question is, how much, how detrimental will it be, and how much will it affect you? And so what we're going to see is a carbon copy of 1999 with travel agents. It is going to be that same exact thing playing out again. History repeats itself, and technological and technology disruptions play out kind of the same way. In 1999 when airlines rolled out online tickets, overnight, travel agents almost went extinct, like it was like the whole industry just dried up and everybody was like, well, don't need me anymore. But the really interesting thing is to realize that today, there are still travel agents doing very well, making very good livings.

Ian Robertson 
Even with AI now, even a second disruption for them.

Preston Kincaid 
Yeah, because the one thing that AI won't do well at replacing is relationships and trust and history. Right? When you've worked with somebody for 10, 15, years, you've worked with them seven or eight times, you trust them. We're experiential and habit based creatures, right? So this gets into like, branding 101, right? This is why McDonald's has been successful, even though they provide some of the crappiest food, is they replicate the experience. No matter which McDonald's you walk into, whether it be in Germany or, you know, South Central Los Angeles, it's going to look the same, smell the same, you're going to be greeted the same. The food's going to be the same. They don't deviate from their experience, and they replicate it perfect. And so what's going to happen over these next 15, 20, years is that people who are in tune with and have an expectation of an experience, the people are replicating it, they know what they're getting. They're not changing. They're not clicking an AI button to get a home inspection or anything else, because they know that Ian is the guy that did our last three inspections, and we love him, right? And it's the professional consultant aspect of that, of providing that high level service to them that keeps them coming back and is going to keep them loyal to you. And that's, again, that whole limbic brain thing where, when you provide that service to them, and you're asking them to join your tribe, so to speak, that habitual thing in your head that, you know, makes you want to survive and stay alive kicks in, and you're going to be a repeat customer no matter what. Now the problem is, and this is the controversial part that's going to piss off a lot of home inspectors, is there are a lot of home inspectors that are just mediocre home inspectors. They are just packing their schedules with inspections, knocking them out, hitting publish on the report, going to the next inspection, knocking it out, hitting publish on the report. They're not taking the time to actually get someone to join their tribe. They're not taking the time to bond with that person, to get to know somebody, build a relationship, heck, even build a friendship. I have friends right now that are former clients of mine, that I now have dinner at their house, and we're friends. AI isn't going to replace that, because AI is not going to invite you over for dinner or to hang out with their family, go boating or whatever, and this is how travel agents have morphed. The people who are providing a very high level service, coincidentally, are also charging a premium price for that service. These are not cheap travel agents, so they're aiming for the best clients, to do the best work, to provide the best service. So what's the key here? They're really fine tuning their job to provide and deliver excellence, and that's going to be the difference. And so many home inspectors right now are so entrenched in their comfort zone, right? And this is where that whole thing about, should the client attend? Should the client be a part of this? Hey, look in the mirror and ask yourself, are you a home inspector, or are you a professional consultant? Are you a report generator, or are you a relationship builder? These are key differentiators in our field that everybody is going to be forced to face over the next five to seven years. And I hate to break it to you guys, there are apps right now that you can click a button to get a $99 AI home inspection.

Ian Robertson 
So if I could talk about that for just a second, maybe a step back, because I think your travel agent part is, that example is very apt, but when we talk about the AI disruption, so for instance, according to World Economics forum, 85 million jobs were displaced by AI automation this year. That's insane. It's estimating another 2 million roles are projected to be gone by 2030. And we may think, well, we love that old adage, you can't pay AI to go into the crawl space. No, but you can pay the 19 year old college student on summer vacation to climb into that crawl space. So there's an app that I've been following that uses AI for plumbing inspections. So it runs the camera down the drain and finds everything that we would typically find. It's a very finite way of using it, but that just shows that the technology is starting enough that it will catch up to us, and it's not going to come in and say, well, nobody's going to want some 19 year old with a camera. Not at first, but in five to 10 years, you said five to seven, I'm estimating five to 10, the technology will be there enough that you can start doing that. And so if we're the kind of person where they don't meet us and they click on a button to hire us on our website, we show up, we do the inspection, we send the report, and we're happy because they didn't distract us, we're going to be the first to go, with that business model, because there's going to be a million other companies that'll do that now and do it way cheaper, way faster, and will they find everything? No, but that same client is not going to care.

Preston Kincaid 
I totally agree. And here's the part of this to add on to that is when your client's not there, the only way they have of knowing that you did their inspection is the name and your your face on the report. Theoretically, you could be a report mill with 10 report writers in Malaysia, and you could be sending photographers to the house to shoot photos, running it through an AI filter to rough out a report 80%, fine tune it, hit publish, and have it go to Preston, and then I press the publish button with my name on it, right? And I hate to tell you, what I just said is going to happen. We're already doing it with the foundation certifications, right? Think about it. Engineers are generating the certificates, but they're sending us out there to be a photographer.

Ian Robertson 
Engineers have been doing it now. We've actually been working with two engineer firms that have been trying to work with us to basically do just that. They're like, we send these guys out $20 an hour. They take a bunch of pictures, comes back, run it through the AI, and then we look it over, and then off it goes. So it's going to change our industry. That will take another bit of time. This isn't coming tomorrow, but it's on its way faster than I personally expected.

Preston Kincaid 
I think it's coming faster than any of us think. When I said five to seven years, I think it's going to put a dent in our industry sooner than five years.

Ian Robertson 
Well, there's companies out there that are, Inspectify-esque. They're kind of like them. I expect Inspectify probably already is working on something, but there's at least two more that I personally know of, that I have seen, that produce terrible reports right now, but I watched them like a year or so ago, and then a year later, I'm like that, while still a terrible job, got markedly better.

Preston Kincaid 
All right, but here's a problem and kind of a causation of that that nobody's talking about. Number on, I touch on it quite a bit, and I piss off a lot of people when I say it, but we as home inspectors writing these magnificent reports that we pour our heart and soul into, we do that because we're delivering that to a client thinking that they care, and they do care, to some degree, but they read that report for two weeks, and when they close, they forget about that report for the rest of their life. It's not a best selling novel that they're handing down through generations, right? So the reason I bring that up is because people don't care as much as we think they do, and they only care as much as they trust us to do our job. Now here's what's happening. And I'm telling you right now, my data point on this, Ian, is social media comments. When you grow a social media following and your comments pour in by the 10s of 1000s, if not millions, you start to glean common threads through your comments, and you realize that number one, we home inspectors are playing into this. Okay, we're playing into the erosion of public trust. How are we doing this? Well, number one, realtors are actually causing this. Why? Because realtors just want to sell houses and make money, and they don't really care how they present it, how they lie about it, how they, you know, make it happen, including lying to people to say they have multiple offers and you have to waive your inspection to have your offer accepted, right? They'll do whatever they have to do to sell houses and make money, and then we're playing right into it by doing what, trying to walk that razor thin line of writing an accurate, thorough report without alarming people, and softening it up and rewriting our narratives 50 times until it doesn't scare people, right? But we get to the point where our reports are now so watered down, and half of them are so full of disclaimers, and you know, kind of, you know,legal protections, that we're delivering these milk toast reports now, where buyers are going, that's BS. And we are losing the public's trust right along with the realtors because we're allowing them to dilute and dull the precision of what we do as a home inspector.

Ian Robertson 
You know, it's interesting that you bring that up too, because we kill ourselves in so many ways. We kill our own industry, and it is true, icky part of our industry that I have always hated where, okay, I'm losing an agent today because they're like, can you just make it sound less scary? I'm like, I'm not making it sound scary. I remember this one agent. I'm like, you make it sound so scary. I'm like, I said the foundation wall is bowed in. They're like, yeah, find a different way to say it. I'm like, no, I'm just writing down what I see with my eyeballs. But you know what's interesting too, is every time we turn in a report, depending on which reporting software we use, we are training the model that's replacing us. So one of the largest software providers. I won't say their name here. I'll let everybody guess, but I'll be respectful, because it was their CEO came up to me, and he's just like, hey, you know, we're catching up with the AI thing and this and that. And he goes, we're training on all these reports so that they can auto-caption photos. And I kind of looked at him like, don't you advertise that you don't use people's data. But now some home inspector is writing all these comments and his life experience, and now you're training off of his reports so that other home inspectors can have it automated for them.

Preston Kincaid 
You know, I have this weird vantage point of having been from Silicon Valley, having been part of a billion startups, having been in technology companies, seeing exactly how this stuff works, exactly how these terms and conditions are written, and exactly the ways around this stuff. If you want to access and sniff data and do things, there are ways to word that and to kind of code around that, so that if you're teaching AI from your software, and you're not going to be the one releasing that new software that replaces home inspectors and automates the whole damn process, some third party companies doing it through that AI teaching. Then it's easy to say, I'm not using that data. I'm not doing it, no, but you're feeding it into a system that allows you, through another company, to do it, right, creating your own competition and your own replacement is so common in technology that most people don't even know it's happening. And it allows you to have that deniability to say, no, no, we're not doing that. Well, not you technically, but that other LLC that you know, is sharing the same data pool is doing that, right?

Ian Robertson 
No, no. But even even without that, let's say that software company decides, which they've already decided, that everybody gets to take advantage of the pool of information from home inspectors. So now you have a home inspection company that joins them, and you know, this guy has never done an inspection, and Preston your comments are, you've worked on them for years and refined them. I've had attorneys and other home inspectors look over my comments. Now that new home inspector gets suggestions. Oh, hey, we captioned this photo with this great comment. Or they kind of reword it, because it learned, not the exact wording of the comments, but learned from that inspector, as the CEO put it, you know, it's training in the large language model. So now it's like, hey, would you like us to auto populate some comments? How about we improve this wording a little bit? And all it's doing is feeding that home inspector that just came on at $199 compared to the guy that came on charging $1,000 and he's an amazing inspector of 20 years. You know, it's already happening.

Preston Kincaid 
It is definitely, but here's the point of all of this. The point is, man, what's the best analogy I can think of? You know, I've heard people say things like, oh, man, it's a terrible analogy to use. But if your job can be so easily replaced, you're not doing a good enough job. If your job can be replaced by that new AI thing, you didn't have a competitive advantage. You weren't good enough to survive the paradigm shift, which is why I've been preaching till I'm blue in the face. And it's strange to me how much blowback I get from other inspectors who say, oh, you're arrogant, or you're a know it all, you know you think, they really give me a lot of blowback over this, when me saying this has no benefit to me at all, because I'm working my ass off to do that, right. It's not like I wake up every day and go, I just need to cram out as many inspections as I can to make as much money as I can. No, what I've been doing for the last two years is trying to do the fewest inspections that I possibly can while increasing my revenue streams. And that's hard. That's the hardest thing to do, because you have to deliver on those services. You can't be mediocre. You can't just run in or run out, generate a report, run to the next one. You can't do that. If you're going to be a professional consultant. You have to show up. You have to deliver, you have to deliver excellence. Your reports have to be spot on. So my son just went through two years of shadowing me, and I was hard on him because his propensity also was to get into a comfort zone. And when I saw his reports, and I say, why are there eight narratives with no photos or videos in them? Well, it's just a thing. No, that needs to be defensible in court, and the client needs to see what you're talking about. You're asking them just to take your word for it. But what happens when the seller says that doesn't exist and your inspector's lying? Why is there no photo with an arrow, or you pointing at something? Right? That's how you deliver excellence, is being like covering, dotting every i, crossing every t, you know, showing up with with crawl bots, showing up with drones, showing up with thermal imaging, spending time with your clients.

Ian Robertson 
That's a big one for me.

Preston Kincaid 
It's so big. Like I can't believe that there's an inspector anywhere in this country that argues against having their clients present and spending time talking about the largest purchase of their life. We trivialize it because we do three to 500 inspections a year, so it's just like another routine inspection for us. That might be the only home inspection that person ever purchases in their life. That's a big event for them. And when they show up and you go, hey, thank you for being here. The most important thing today is that you are as involved as you want to be. You are welcome to shadow me. You can ask me a million questions today, because this is my job. I do this every day, and the only reason I'm here is to help you with your decision. What I just said to you right now is what I say to every client in the driveway. Now I also tell them, there's no requirement for you to shadow me. I promise you, if I find anything significant today and you're not around, I'm going to come find you, and we're going to talk about it, right? That's professional consulting, and that right there is how you're going to survive when AI comes. Because the minute you lose the public's trust, and the minute you lose the value perception to your clients, they'll opt for the button they'll get the $99 AI, because it's almost as good. You have to be vastly better than what that technology is going to provide.

Ian Robertson 
Yeah, and that's exactly it. As you were talking, I was reading an article not long ago about the advent of safety razors, how they were almost invented on accident. And barbers all over were worried. You know, that was, like, 100 years ago, or something silly like that. I forget the exact number. There's still guys all over, there's a guy right down the road from me doing hot shaves. Do you think he's worried about going out of business? No. So AI cheapens our business. It cheapens the people's view of what a home inspection is. They're like, oh, my phone can do it, or things like that, same thing that Gillette did with razors. There's always going to be the boutique guys out there that do exactly that. Sit down, talk with you. This guy could buy, he was getting a $50 hot shave that takes 10 minutes, and he's paying for it happily, because the guy's talking to him. He's his friend. He feels good. He feels taken care of, and he's going to come back for his next $50 shave. He's not going to worry about, oh, I could buy 10 packs of, you know, Gillette safety razors for that. You know, he doesn't want those clients.

Preston Kincaid 
Well, as you were saying that, it just popped in my head, right with what you're saying right now, when I was, when I was very young, my very first company that I ever had was a commercial sign company. And when I was 17 and 18 years old, I was learning at the time, I was doing hand lettering, hand painting, airbrushing, pinstriping, murals on hoods of cars, truck club, you know, windows, like we were doing a lot of really creative stuff. And when I started my commercial sign company, we were hand painting most of the signs that we were making, and we were adding airbrushed, you know, embellishments to them. We were doing really nice work. And then the computer showed up, this machine called the Gerber 4b came along, and it was a gentle knife that cut vinyl that you could stick on boards. And all the companies were just jumping at this, because, man, you could generate a lot of signs with that computer. But what was lost was the art and the hand painted look, and we resisted that. And so yes, we ended up buying a plotter and going down that road and doing the computer stuff, because you kind of had to. But you know what people started doing was they started paying a premium for the hand painted and airbrushed stuff. You want to know something? When we were applying stickers to windows, nobody ever stopped on the street to watch us do it. But when we were hand painting and doing gold leaf on windows, you would sometimes have a crowd behind you watching you do it. And that's when you realized that, yeah, that old method, or that tried and true method, technology isn't always better, even though it might be faster, right, more accurate. Half the problem with the signage was they look too perfect. Every R looked exactly the same, but when you hand paint it, every R looks different. Well, I brought that same experience into my home inspection business, which is, I do a lot of things that's old school— consulting, having conversations, not using technology for everything, shaking hands, spending time. So that's how we're going to survive the AI, you know, intrusion into our industry, is by providing those high level services and being better than the technology is, vastly better. If we don't, we're cooked.

Ian Robertson 
And I would like to add that this doesn't mean we reject AI. We should embrace it. It should be a tool in our belt. We should have it and say, you know, correct my grammar, you know, be more accurate about what I'm saying here. You know, I did the inspection, but just look over my photos when it gets to that point, and tell me if I missed anything, whatever. It should be a tool that we use, but we should be the element that sells us to our clients.

Preston Kincaid 
I'll tell you who's doing a fantastic job of finding the perfect balance with AI and old school reporting is AJ.

Ian Robertson 
Yeah.

Preston Kincaid 
AJ turned me on to a little trick. He goes, dude, take your final report and before you hit publish, he goes download it as a PDF, drop it on chatGPT and say, give me a one page summary of this report. And he goes, then put a cover page with a chatGPT summary.

Ian Robertson 
Interesting.

Preston Kincaid 
And I started doing that, and it's beautiful. It makes a nice written, and you could tell chatGPT, learn my style of speaking or writing and write it in my style, so it still has your style. I still wrote the report, I still did the inspection, I still consulted with the client, I still told them exactly how all of this stuff gets repaired. I told him exactly who to call for that if they need to, hey, and if the price is above this, call someone else, because it shouldn't be like all the stuff that should be consulted with the client I took care of, but then I used AI to make a nice cover page.

Ian Robertson 
Interesting. So I mean that just shows that it works well, like it's a great tool. The problem is, the tool does not replace the person, just like, you know, if you're a barber and you refuse to use electric lights and a nice, new, I don't know, fancy razor made with carbon steel, modern, I don't know what they make razors out of. Then, okay, we're just going to be stuck in the stone age, but can we still provide the same service, but use modern tools. And there's a balance with AI. But listen, if we're going to be out there and say, okay, well, there's some guys that I'm like, all right, you're getting too heavy into it, like they'll do something like AJ did, which I love that suggestion. I think everybody should write that one down. But they're just like, using it to write all of their comments, look at all of their photos, and all of a sudden we get mentally lazy. We stop inspecting, stop being inspectors, and all of a sudden we rely heavily on our tool. There's a guy that I know, he's actually working on my house now. If his nail gun breaks, he doesn't blink an eye, he grabs his hammer out and goes at it and does it just as fast. It's crazy. We should be able to do that with AI. If AI ever becomes too expensive, or something happens in the future where they regulate it heavily, we're gonna have to go back and say, how do I inspect again? That's dangerous.

Preston Kincaid 
I agree 100%. There was a guy named Gary Turner. He was the owner of GT bicycles, and he was a very wealthy man, but he gave me some business advice way back when, and he told me, Preston, the thing you have to remember about any business anywhere, no matter what you're doing, there are only two directions. Business of any kind only goes two directions, forward or backward. There's no such thing as sitting still, because when you find a comfort zone and you just start to do things as kind of a routine. You just do the same thing every day, I promise you, somebody else is going to find a way to do it better. They're going to use better tools. They're going to add thermal imaging, right? So the minute you try to sit still and be comfortable, people are going to pass you up. And that stuck with me all these years. And it can't be easy to be my son, because I push him so hard the same way I push myself really hard to be as good as I can and to get better every day. And that doesn't mean I'm the best. It doesn't mean I think I'm the best. It just means tomorrow I want to be better than I was today, and this is how I plan on surviving and flourishing and succeeding and growing and everything else. And my schedule right now is the most, like the last year and a half, has been the most manageable it's ever been, and I've made more money, and I've had time to spend with my wife, my life changed. I got married, you know, a year and a half ago, so I was no longer the single guy that could stay up till two in the morning writing reports, because I did four inspections that day, and then I realized I don't have to. I can have an average of $900 per inspection, and do one a day, and have a very comfortable life, and deliver quality and deliver service, and have time to talk with people and bond and connect and everything else. And I don't want to do it any other way.

Ian Robertson 
Yeah, you know. And that's a beautiful thing. There was a home inspector I was talking to the other day, and I'll just give his first name, Dylan. We were talking about that. He listened to that advice, we've talked about that on the show. Not only does it give you a better life, it gives you a better business and it gives your clients a better experience. If I hired an unrushed doctor that only did one surgery a day, I'd feel a lot more confident. Matter of fact, there was a friend of mine who needed surgery, and somebody who knew the doctor came up and said, get the morning appointment. Do not take him in the afternoon. He gets tired. And I'm like, dude, that's messed up. Like, we're human beings, but it's not just a matter of making more money. Here's my opinion, and I think you're thinking along the same lines, I'm going to break our industry up into thirds, the bottom third, the middle third, and the top third. The top third is not going to be affected whatsoever by the AI intrusion. It's going to be like, oh, okay, yep, all right. Well, I have less phone calls, but the same exact amount of work. Great. The middle third is going to struggle. The bottom third is going to be gone.

Preston Kincaid 
I agree with that, with one exception. The top third is going to benefit from the vanishing bottom third and the struggling middle, because some of that's going to trickle up, right? Not everybody is going to opt for the AI or the newfangled technology. Some people are going to go the other direction. And so if you are focused right now on delivering an absolutely superior experience, this isn't a superior inspection and superior report, a superior experience, if you can make your inspections an experiential thing, right? And that's something I haven't heard anybody talk about when they say, oh, should your should your clients be present? Well, I hear inspectors all the time talk about, well, yeah, when they're present, you know what I do is I crank up the heat so they leave me alone. They get out of the house.

Ian Robertson 
Yeah, right, I saw that comment.

Preston Kincaid 
Right? So when I hear that, I go, so you're trying really hard not to connect with your clients. You're trying to make them leave you alone, like you're not trying to provide a superior experience for them. So how do you expect them to pay you $1,000 for an inspection that somebody's charging 300 bucks for if you're not going to provide a superior experience.

Ian Robertson 
I think experience is the key word there, because we think of it as an inspection, and it's not just an inspection to our clients. Just like going to the doctor is not just an exam. There was a doctor, and I've talked about it, man, it's probably four years ago on this podcast, but my wife had a medical condition. We got treated badly by one doctor and another doctor came in, sat in the chair, took my wife's hand, said hello to me, asked her genuinely, how she was doing, and then explained to us what was going on. Said it wasn't your fault. This stuff happens. We're going to take care of you. It's going to be difficult. Here's my experience. To this day, that was 14 years ago, I would seek that doctor out. I still remember him. If my wife ever needed anything again, he's the man. So now I went to the dentist not long ago, and they were using AI to find stuff wrong with my teeth, so they scan my whole mouth in multiple areas. AI is like pointing stuff out. And you know what? At first, I'm like, all right, if this is all I'm paying for, I'm leaving. That was my first thought. It was a gut reaction, and that's everybody's gut reaction, because AI tends to cheapen things. Now the dentist came in, she goes, hey, Ian, what's going on? And she's Spanish. She calls me Miguelito, and we're friends. And she showed me a few things, and now I felt good. She gave me the experience. Now, interestingly, she didn't say, ignore the AI. She goes, oh, the AI said this or that. Let's just keep an eye on those two spots, but otherwise, I think you're fine. And it was amazing. She gave me an experience. I would have left there not feeling good with AI. She made me feel good. And that's what people really want. They want to feel good.

Preston Kincaid 
Great point. Really great point. And this is something that I hone in on I did all the way back five years ago with my jumpstart videos where I talked about this, and this is, even the people that are disagreeing with me, people watching this video right now, disagreeing and saying I hate everything Preston's saying, I disagree with him, he's an idiot. Here's where I'm going to refute that. Here's where I'm going to make them go, okay, yeah, he's right. Everybody wants that experience from their doctor. Everybody wants that experience from their lawyer, from their consultant, whoever they're working with, no matter who you are, you want bedside manner. You want attention. You want time. You want conversation about what's going on. You want information, right? Think about how all of us are looking for more information from people and can't get it because nobody has the time anymore. So what does this boil down to? It boils down to the golden rule. You should be treating people the way you want to be treated. You should be delivering the service you want to get. You should be the home inspector that you would hire to inspect your house. Would you want an inspector that says, stay the hell away, don't come. You'll get my report tomorrow. If you got any questions, call. Like, is that what you want? How many of us would want that from a home inspector? I wouldn't. If I wanted to be there and say, hey, when I looked at the house, I saw this thing. Can you please explain that to me and show me and, you know, connect all the dots for me. Hell yes, show up, because that's what you're paying me for, and that's why I just charged you triple what the next guy was going to charge you. We're going to stand here 45 minutes and talk about that foundation if we have to.

Ian Robertson 
Yeah, and that's the thing. I think the whole, should the client be with you discussion is more allegorical than anything else. It represents what we're doing with the experience, because it's 1,000 micro interactions. I'm just thinking back, I remember inspections where the the client was crying because we found a defect, you know, and they've been looking for a house, you know? I like to tell people I'm not mushy. I'm kind of mushy. I put my arm around her and I tell her husband, I'm like, it's okay, things will get figured out. You know, helping somebody like, we just moved in, do you remember this? And I drove over to their house, I'm like, here, let's get this fixed. I made no money on it. It wasn't my fault. It happened after when the seller moved out. And I'm just being a good person. That's never going to go away, those micro interactions, I'm not talking about going to fixing people's houses. I'm just talking about being a human being, giving people what they really need. It's like that episode of The Office where that guy from Pretty in Pink, I forget, but he was playing Robert California, and he said, there is no sales. He goes, I don't care if you need $4 billion of deep sea drilling equipment or a ream of paper. And then he went on to talk about how it was the human connection, human need, the person on the other end of the table, being able to read them, who they are and build that relationship. The more we can do that, we'll survive any interruption by any amount of AI.

Preston Kincaid 
Yeah, and the two pieces I'd like to add to that is in a world right now where that's becoming more scarce and it doesn't really exist anymore, it only makes it easier to capitalize on it. It makes it easier to provide and it makes it easier to charge for it. So at the end of the day, as much hate gets thrown my way from being so vocal about this stuff, there's part of me that doesn't care, because all the people saying, nope, I don't want clients attending, it distracts me. I can get my job done faster, get my reports out quicker if they're not there, guess what? You're making me more money. You're making my job better and easier. Because now what happens is, it is my number one most effective marketing strategy is to talk up how interactive I am with clients and how much I'm going to explain things and how they're going to feel at peace when they leave and they won't even hardly need the report. And you want to see realtors telling other realtors you gotta use Preston. Why? Because nobody else is doing it. So you're making it easier for me. And guess what? Now that a lot of the inspectors in my area are stepping up and doing that and they're providing that consultation, it's making our industry better, but my key differentiator is vanishing. I'm not so different anymore, right? There's three or four inspectors around here, some really good ones. Josh Wood, man, he's right here. That guy's a solid inspector, really good, you know, he encourages his clients to attend and he's stepping up his game, and he's one of the top inspectors around, so guess what? He's more competitive. Right? So the more people that say, no, I'm not going to do that, the more they make it easier for people like me that are gonna capitalize on it. And the more that people say, you know, you know what he might be, right? I'm gonna do it, the more competitive they make it. But guess what they're doing, they're raising the bar, right? When 10 inspectors are encouraging clients to attend and 10 inspectors are charging $900 for that inspection, guess what? We've all risen together. We rose with the tide that we all helped to lift. And that's what I would love to see nationwide in our industry, instead of all of these people arguing as to why they can't charge more, do better, provide a better service or let our clients attend.

Ian Robertson 
Yeah, I think if we were to summarize the entire podcast is what's going to save us from the AI disruption as individuals, is the human touch. We did a podcast a week or two ago on if you should use AI call answering services, the answer is invariably, in my opinion, absolutely not, because that's leaning into the death of your business. Whereas if I have a human answering the phone on my end, I'm getting that job. You know, it's interesting. I kind of in my own market, if in your market, everybody should want other home inspectors in their market to go the route of going all AI with answering over AI reports and things like that. Because just what you said, Nick Gromicko on our podcast one time said, he's like, I wish there was a million ASHIs out there. When you compare ASHI to NACHI, NACHI blows them out of the water. So he's like, you never want to kill, that's actually something from Sun Tzu. You never want to kill your enemy completely. You want the weaker vessel there. That's what John Rockefeller did with Standard Oil. You notice when he broke down millionaire, was it millionaire row or whatever. And he bought all these oil companies. He left a few when. And when he bought out all the oil fields and parts of the railroad and all that stuff. He left a few stragglers because they made him look good.

Preston Kincaid 
Well, think about it, you can't, you know, where's the glory in winning a race if you're on the racetrack by yourself? Right? So it's better to have competitors, and it's better to have people, you know, I actually like it, because the better the inspectors become in my area, the more money they charge, the better the services, the more it pushes me to find other key differentiators and to up my game. And this is, again, that whole forward, backward thing. I'm not going to get comfortable and go backwards. I'm just not. I'm not gonna let people pass me up. Now, I used to race motorcycles professionally for many years, most of my life. I have that competitive nature about me. It's probably why I got into marketing. But at the end of the day, that's what drives me every day, is to say I'm not letting these guys pass me up. I'll just find new ways of upping my game, right? So I'm going to keep doing that. And I believe that no matter how much AI infiltrates our industry, I think it's only going to benefit me. Why? Because, first of all, I think realtors are going to be the first to go, but the same way realtors are going to go, all of these mediocre realtors that are causing 90% of the problems that are in real estate are going to vanish overnight. But guess what? Those really good realtors that I know, the ones I get to work with that are consultants and care about people and do a good job and advocate on their behalf. These guys, those realtors, are going to survive. They're going to thrive. They're going to be sought after, right? So even they're going to benefit. So I actually see this whole AI infiltration being beneficial to the top tier, the people who are doing the best work and striving for excellence. It's just all the other people that are the bottom feeders, they're gonna go. People who are just, you know, just churning it out, not really trying. They're toast. The middle guys are going to struggle, because what they're going to do is go, hey, you know, my revenues are suffering, but they're probably going to step their game up. And a lot of them are going to actually learn to be successful through that change. Make no bones about it, it's going to change the reality of our entire world, but I don't think it's all going to be doom and gloom. I think there's a lot of aspects to this that will be beneficial to those of us that are going to adapt, learn to embrace it, learn to use it, and learn to rise above it.

Ian Robertson 
Yeah, I agree. This isn't a doom and gloom podcast saying that AI is going to destroy the home inspection industry. I think it'll drastically change it in about five to 10 years, but like 10 years ago, if we had a cool report that set us apart, 10 years ago, if we had good technology to set us apart, now, it's going to be the reverse. The more human we make our business, the more interactions, the more people we have relationships with, the more we're going to give people what they are lacking. Imagine, actually there's a George Karampoulis, who has been on the show...

Preston Kincaid 
I love George, man, good people, George is awesome.

Ian Robertson 
Isn't George great? I love George. He's one of our biggest fans, too. So shout out to you, George. Thanks for being an ITB user.

Preston Kincaid 
George is one of those guys that no matter how much, if you spend 10 minutes with him, you'll be a happier person. Your life will be better, yeah.

Ian Robertson 
Especially if he lets you drink some of what he calls the Greek water.

Preston Kincaid 
Don't drink his Greek water.

Ian Robertson 
That's for another podcast, but like when you read his report, one thing I've heard from home inspectors that they've said back from their clients is it sounds so human, and they like that, because we're so used to reading AI gobbly gook that when we read something that's actually human, like good grammar and all that stuff, but it's like, wow. Those are the things making our reports more human, making the experience, again, that word, with our clients better, interacting with them on site, before the inspection, after the inspection, we're going to be able to charge a premium. And in fact, our prices will probably go up as the industry divides, so as AI starts to push into the cheap $199 inspection industry, we're gonna have a huge divide. We're gonna have the low end and we're gonna have the high end.

Preston Kincaid 
Listen man, do you know what I could charge right now to go do hand lettering and airbrushing on vehicles and fleets and different things. It's so rare now that almost nobody does it. I could probably charge 20 times what I used to charge to do that, that human artistic, the thing that computers can't replicate.

Ian Robertson 
Yeah.

Preston Kincaid 
It's the imperfection of the humanness. It's the interaction. But like you said, I think if there was one word to summarize this whole podcast, it's experiential. It's experience. What kind of experience are you providing for your clients in the home buying process, which is largely an unpleasant experience, and if you can be the one pleasant experience they have..

Ian Robertson 
Nailed it.

Preston Kincaid 
Game over, man, you're gonna thrive.

Ian Robertson 
That's exactly it. You hit the nail right on the head. Preston, always a blast having you on. We could go on for another couple hours here, but we've reached the end of our time. But man, we got to have you on more often. And thank you for taking time out of your day and being on the show with us.

Preston Kincaid 
Yeah, dude, fist bump, come on, let's do it.

Ian Robertson 
There we go. No one can see it on our audio listeners, but we're fist bumping right now.

Preston Kincaid 
Hey, man, thanks for having me on. Ian, you're one of the best people I know. I appreciate everything you're doing. I mean that wholeheartedly. So thanks for having me on, what a privilege.

Ian Robertson 
Oh, wow. That means a lot coming from you. Thank you, Preston, but you're awesome. Your insights are great, and thank you so much again. Your time is very valuable, so thank you for being on.

Preston Kincaid 
All right.

Ian Robertson 
Have a good one.

Preston Kincaid 
Take care.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at info@inspectortoolbelt.com.

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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.