Property AI Report 077 - Distressed Agencies, Codex v Claude & AI Fury at Flower Show

00:00
Introduction and Market Overview

05:51
Financial Distress in Estate Agencies

08:54
AI Tools and Innovations in Real Estate

14:51
Tech News: IPOs and AI Developments

18:29
Codex vs. Claude: The AI Race

23:13
Forward Deployed Engineers: A New Approach

25:57
OpenAI's Legal Challenges and Industry Dynamics

28:06
Weird AI of the Week: Chelsea Flower Show

29:47
Tool of the Week: OpenAI's Codex

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everybody and welcome to the Property AI Reports. This is your weekly digest of all things property and AI brought to you by me, Mal McCann, and my good friend and co-host Matt Goddard. Matt, welcome back from San Francisco. How was it?

SPEAKER_00 0:12

It was awesome. I think I was always going to say that, wasn't I? Yeah. Well, I'm back. It's not half past midnight. It's half past eight on a Saturday morning.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

We're good to go, right? Absolutely right. Yes, this is uh this is how focused we are on bringing all this news. But yes, there's a lot to get through as well. So let's kick off with our property news. All right, so um, first up this week, the the start of indicators that the property market is not doing great. So there's a lot of a lot of noise out there about how transaction times are taking longer and longer and fall-throughs are increasing. And it's one of those things that kind of we don't tend to talk about in the industry, as an industry, because you know, obviously confidence uh can take a knock if if everybody's talking it down. But there's some pretty stark stats that have uh come out from um from the likes of the Zuplero and Connells this week. Matt, I know you've been on the other side of the world. Have you caught up with any of this sort of stuff? And what's your kind of sense from talking to agents out there as well?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I've definitely not spoken to any agents over here during that time. So it was very much a uh a geek conference, so there weren't that many agents at all at the uh the event, despite the fact it was actually the boys at Ray White who suggested I go in the first place. But um I don't actually think these stats are that groundbreaking, right? Or revelatory. Well, that's a great word for this time of morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Very good, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Like one of the examples is that Connell said in April, so just last month, the average time from a property going under offer to exchange in Great Britain was 104 days. Now that's up from 76 days for them, 19. But actually, 104 isn't that out of whack with what other people are reporting, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

No, not uh for the first stages. And then yeah, I I I think over time we've kind of if you do compare it to 2019 and then they also compare it back to like the 2010s.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, great. Why don't we go all the way back in the 1600s? We just exchanged some sheep for these houses.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Exactly, when I was a lad. But yes, I I I I I do I am minded to agree. I think this isn't like news news, it's just got a stats attached to what is what is kind of happening. And again, I think we saw recently there was uh there was some comparison between different estate agents and how long they were taking. But uh but yeah, I I th I think it's worth just kind of reflecting on the fact that this is um it it is a a long time, right? My parents actually at the moment are trying to sell their place and it's on my porter. Of course they are, absolutely. Yeah, that was first place, first place they listed. But yeah, it's it's it's been one of those things where uh it's it's just the change just keeps going and you know, people kind of waiting on to this and that, and there's there's one form that's not been put in the right place. So it is taking a long time. And I think everybody's got stories that they know people who for whom this has been a problem, and that again is is not hide not wildly unusual. But but I do think that you know, with all of the different pressures, and we will talk in a sec about uh about estate agencies under pressure as well, it kind of needs to be focused on, right? You know, we we were talking just off air about you know the housing secretaries and things like that, you know. Somebody really needs to get hold of this and try and actually cram it through. We've had the example of Scotland since, you know, I first entered the industry back in the early 2000s, um, as being like, you know, over there they do it quite well, just north of the border. Why don't we do something similar here? And it's just like, and nobody's done anything. So I do think it's worth just kind of reflecting on the fact that we we we've accepted this suboptimal process for so long now, and it's just elongating everything and making it really, really difficult to, you know, to make a living in a in a in an industry that's worth however many billions slash trillion, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

It's um it's it needs digitization, doesn't it? But then I saw a video, I can't remember who it was actually from now. I think it was from one of the guys at TM Group where a very vital part of the process was actually housed up in a residential unit in the outskirts of Liverpool, and you had to go there in person or or contact them in manually. And it's it goes back to the conversation we've had before about Lonres, where one of the early things they did was go around the filing cabinets and actually digitize filing cabinets, right? And yeah, until we start doing that. I was on I was fortunate, I guess is one term of the phrase, um, to be on a call about the new sort of um property register as part of the renters' rights act. And the conversations there are a very, very early days, despite the fact that this is something that's been coming for a while, and it concerns me that we're getting better as a nation digitising things like passport renewals, but actually a lot of the bits that are the plumbing underneath what we do in the property sector are still very manual and and don't have that focus on them. I'm sure if we we spend the money we could do, but who's gonna spend that money?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, exactly right. And it you know, because it is such a fragmented industry, because you know, there are conveyances versus estate agents, and you know, our conveyances paid enough for them to focus on this, you know, all those kind of arguments that again have been swirling around for so long. Um yes, this this this news this week that kind of has a focus on just how difficult it is, um, I think helps to kind of crystallise it. Um but yes, I I would be um unsurprised if we were doing episode 125 in a year's time, and this is still a problem because it there's no indications, and particularly now the the government is going into its own paroxysms of uh uh of of chaos uh infighting, yeah, that it doesn't get stolved. But you know, look, um there's um that the numbers are out. Um it is uh Zuppler also puts some numbers out there um this week saying um that basically half of properties, over half of properties actually fall through, which again, you know, is is a a bald and you know crazy stat. There are wildly differing reasons why that might happen. Obviously, some people just speculatively put properties on the market because they know they don't have to pay until it then unless it succeeds. Um but at the same time, that's a lot of effort for very little reward. So yeah, um I think that's you know, as as we kind of build up into uh the autumn, hopefully, you know, things are going to start to move again. But it does seem, you know, from what a lot of people are are saying and a lot of the conversations that I've been having, that um, you know, people are almost anticipating that that you know summer may be coming um a bit earlier this year with the Iran war and all that sort of stuff and depressing uh people's um appetite for change. So yes, I guess we'll we'll see how all that pans out um as we go through. Another slightly uh second um uh story that that is less than uh less than joyful uh is again stories, um articles that have come out this week about there's a sharp rise in estate agencies facing financial distress. Obviously, the first story kind of bleeds into this one, which is uh the fact that it takes so long to get uh to get access to the money and a cash flow is is difficult because it's only upon the sale that actually these um the money comes into these estate agencies. There's those, that pressure. There is obviously you know, national insurance increased pressure, so much that is um going into the kind of the indicators, you know. Obviously, we've spoken before about right move and others, you know, increasing prices, you know, rendering increasing prices. It's it's tough out there for ages right now, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

I was particularly taken on this financial pressure article by the who the research comes from. It's um Begbees Trainer Group's red flag alert report that found that they're in critical financial distress. I'm sure somewhere else hidden in that will tell us what Begby Trainer Group's red flag alert report is trying to sell us. But um it's we know it's difficult, and if you're not selling houses, you're not making money, right? And that's before like last week you referred to the additional charges, right? Move are about to start levying on on estate agents, which just takes another massive chunk out of their income as well, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 7:13

It's just so hard, right? And you know, and I think that um you know obviously we spend a lot of time focusing on the the the AI side of things, how that can help productivity, and it really can. And look, this is a really, really important kind of moment. And perhaps as we look through the next two, three months, if the market itself is not as busy as it might otherwise be, this is the time to experiment. This is the time to really start looking at what those opportunities are for productivity improvements through AI and through other systematic digitized ways of working that are going to help you in the business to actually be more productive and actually help your teams to go out and win more business. Because Bakebe's trainer, I I think they are um um they're administrators. So I think what they're selling is basically the ability, if your business is about to go out of business, come and talk to us and we'll help you, blah, blah, blah. So yes, I think that that's why they've they've kind of flagged this. But yeah, that the numbers are pretty stark and pretty gruesome. 15.1% um uh of uh property and real estate firms in critical financial distress compared to the same period last year, which is punchy, right? Um so yeah, listen, uh there are ways that that that you can improve that uh that's th those circumstances. And you know, it's it's just um a a moment in time, particularly now, as we kind of head towards the summer to kind of really look at what what is possible because so much even the technology which we will talk about that is available now, the AI stuff out there right now um can significantly enhance what you're doing. So yes, it's um it it it's a stark kind of warning and you know the pressures are real, but there are things that that can help to mitigate and it's a it's a good opportunity to kind of really refocus on what's costing you the most money and actually can that be uh improved by technology. All right, our final story on uh Property News is about some of those AI portals, sorry, AI AI tools that are coming out of various uh different entities and some stories about that. So we will just briefly touch on um the ALTO CEO, um Ricardo Yanichi Dawson, um, has come out and basically slammed every other CRM. The CRM wars have been going on for a couple of weeks now, uh with everybody kind of having their competing difference. RAI is the best, no, RAI is the best. And uh yes, he's come out quite strongly yesterday morning, Friday, and basically saying that your the AI your CRM is selling isn't AI, it's a promise. Now, that could be directed at a few of the others that have brought out various things over recent weeks. But he's um his his approach is slightly different, isn't it, Matt? And this is very much obviously in your kind of um your wheelhouse. Um it's not actually that they're baking it into ALTO, it's that they've they've got partners that that have the links that have got the AI, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

I think from what I saw of their launch, it's I'd I'm gonna choose my words wisely. Um there's a few of the AI launches that happened over the last couple of years. If you think about sort of the CRMs that had the image edits built into the CRM or even the property descriptions, almost that super fa superficial sort of genitive AI approach, and full enough, Ricardo in his article calls out that being the first stage of it. And from from the launch, Alto seems to be just bringing those sort of superficial bits into the product, and then the rest were all geared around partners who are using AI. So it seems a little bit and tongue in cheek's the wrong phrase, but the the fact he's come out really aggressively. Uh it feels to me like maybe their launch flopped a little bit or maybe didn't have the reaction they were hoping for because you know RePIT, A Street, Rex have all come out with these quite powerful in-depth ones that that utilise the wealth of data that maybe those newer CRMs I've touched on don't have in their in their systems or data, as I've I've been getting told over the last week. And you you would you and your kids would have loved it, data, data, beta barda, all that sort of stuff. But um I don't really read these articles normally in in the online press because they strike me as like the celebrity gossip sections of the sun. But he's obviously come out quite punchy in there, and it feels like almost uh that reactionary to how their launch went. And um the the good news is that these sort of articles are like the old-fashioned papers, aren't they? They're tomorrow's fish paper. So uh actually once our pods are heads, people will forget about it because um I think the other CRMs have have obviously gone in strong and um and Alta maybe scrambling to see where they plug the gaps.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah, interesting. Um yes, digital fish paper. That's what this uh that's what this pod is. I'm quite hungry now. It's probably about I don't know, dinner time for you in your brain right now. Um all right, so um also um in the AI space, we've had a couple of uh other sort of entries. So Lundres, um, you know, a bit of a bit of a niche product in in London, obviously, uh but but but very good. And and as you said, you know, that they were the how they set themselves up right at the start with the the digitization of of loads of filing cabinets properties was amazing, and you know, 25 years later or whatever it's still it's still going great guns. Um but but they've come out and said um that they they're launching some AI. And I just thought it was it was quite interesting that um essentially they're they're kind of joining the party a little bit. Um it's called AI Boost, it's free for its agents um subscribers, and it says that uh they tag AI onto the property and then it will be made available uh to some AI platforms. So it sounds interesting, it sounds you know, a fair play to them, you know. Again, that that they're kind of putting something out there. Um but I thought what was really interesting as well was it they very specifically, and it was almost like, you know, don't worry, said um uh this is this does not compete with the portals. It's like almost like that just made me wonder why they felt they had to say that. Is there some kind of like, you know, thing underneath that is um that that they're concerned about that the portals might cut them off or something? Do you know what I mean? It was just a really kind of interesting sort of uh thing that they felt they had to put into the press release was that you know, we're doing this AI stuff, but it's not competing with portals. So no, just uh yeah, very interesting business that they are are getting their AI in. And then the final one that we wanted to just touch on was Money Pennies. Really quite interesting, punchy idea. So, you know, that they've got adverts out. Um I've received um a lot of um email shots from the news sources um saying things like selling the family home, there's nothing artificial about that, giving you real people for the calls that matter and AI for the in-between. So they're really trying to uh make a um uh virtue of the fact that they've got humans and AI at the same time. I just thought that was really interesting. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 13:10

I th I think that's been key for them for for a lot of this for probably a good year now, isn't it? We saw it with Klarner where they went aggressive and got rid of all of their support because they felt actually we can get AI to do this and AI can answer the phone calls. And and maybe three or four months later, Klarna rolled back and not not rolled back, that's the wrong turn of phrase. They actually heavily invested in third lines. So normally you first line is like the loggers and floggers, take your ticket, say have you turned on the computer, turns it off and on again. Then you go second line who maybe say, Oopsie, I'm now gonna try and understand what you got, and then third line are the the people who actually pick it up and fix your problem, right? Yes. A lot a lot of that first and second line got replaced by AI and and will continue to be, but Kana then employed heavily in that third line, which is well, you actually really want to speak to a human now because you have got a problem we can't fix. Here's Mal to speak to. I think that is really Money Penny's sweet spot, is that all that automations of I want to book a viewing on three Colcott Road, well, that could be picked up and dealt with, or you're trying to get through to Mal and he's currently out on viewings, I'll take a message and and pass it on. That is where AI excels. But actually, when you've got something really complex or or just emotionally you want to speak to a human, that's where obviously money and penny can sit in and and take those calls, which a lot of the AI phone answering systems won't have, will they? Unless obviously they just divert straight over to the money penny.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

To the agents, yeah, exactly. So yeah, no, I'd say so. Loggers and floggers, that's the that's that's what we're calling the the first line is AI loggers and floggers, brilliant. So yeah, again, um lots and lots of uh kind of uh different products and services kind of being advertised with AI baked in. Um and yeah, just really interesting to see that the the the industry is is kind of moving very significantly, I think, in the last few months uh into this world where everything has got AI somewhere in it, you know, even from from Lunrays, uh Lunrays upwards. Um all right, that is our property news for this week. Let's focus in on our AI and tech news. Um all right, there is plenty to go at, isn't there, Matt? Um and uh yeah, if we start with um should we start with Cerebrus? So this is a tech firm based over in the uh States. They had their IPO on Thursday, I think, wasn't it? Um so so they floated on the uh the the stock exchange out there. And basically, um these these guys are all about the kind of the chips, but not quite as good as NVIDIA, which is the market leader and some of the others. But it just kind of goes to show just how much demand there is for this kind of power. So it's it's share price popped by 108% or something like that on the first day, dropped a little bit back yesterday. Um for me, this just kind of indicates that you know that there are more IPOs coming later on this year. There will be. We're looking at definitely SpaceX, I think, um, which also has X AI in it. We're looking at OpenAI and uh and potentially anthropic as well. But the appetite for this is is significant. And this relatively unknown and sort of you know almost third-tier kind of operator has suddenly managed to make an absolute fortune because yeah, the appetite for compute is only going one way, as referenced by you know the fact that even some of our um what you might call uh sleepier property businesses are are now going firing on all AI in their kind of press releases and stuff. So, Matt, yeah, what do you make of this?

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Well it's the is the first big IPO of 2026, isn't it? A tech IPO. So really sort of a lot of eyes on it with everything as you alluded to later this year. So um certainly very interesting to see and and obviously keep an eye on that now um now that it's kicked in. I think as you touched on, the the talk about how we get more compute and and get those resources coming through. I've heard um just this week that Anthropica now talking about sending things into space to try and deal with, and that's not just because of um doing the deal with Elon and and sort of going on his uh mission to Mars. Uh a lot of people are scrambling for this. The other what thing I heard this week was that new build homes are actually going to be getting data centers built into them as well, so um and having like almost a uh a node approach that every new home has um a small computer running on there so that we can try to deal with this. Because what the flip side of all this demand for communities uh compute is that people are are doing the nimbyism of I don't want data centers in my back door. So it's like I I want all this AI, but not not in my government or not in my greenfield site. So it's um yeah, it's interesting to just see how that continues to play out. And at the same time, and I know we sort of touched on it last week, but anthropic doing one big last raise before they they gun for that IPO as well, right? So just keeping an eye on the financial markets because the private markets have been shucking money over this hand over fist, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

And yeah, like you say, so with Anthropic kind of going out for 30 billion or a raise at like 900 billion valuation and just before they're likely to float. And and that apparently has been triggered because VCs actually approached them and kind of said, you know, we want to put more money up. Can you give us some more shares? Exactly right. So yeah, no, this is going to be a huge, huge second half of the year for um for for kind of um IPOs. But as you say, that's Cerebrus was the first big one for this year, and it's um and all indicators are that the appetite for this is is huge. So we will watch this space. Um all right, um, next up we want to talk about um you want to talk about a bit about codex, right? So codex um is the open AI version of crawl code, or you could spin it the other way around if you want, but I you we have been waxing lyrical um about crawl code and and how amazing that is, and how you know, if you're using crawl design or if you're using claw co-work, just how special it is. But but codex actually, I I'm gonna say kind of almost by stealth, even though they're obviously huge, seem to have caught up and overtaken them, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Very much so. And for me, that the the reason that Claude came to such prominence uh was probably to start with over the Christmas period where people were at a bit of time off and were were hacking around with clawed code and and putting things together very much in that vibe coding sort of a way. And you know, people like you or I or maybe slightly more technical leaning people had already got wind of it. But then co-work was such a shift because it suddenly said, Well, don't worry about clawed code and the fact you can you need to run it in a terminal and it's very sort of tech forward in that respect, is something that's a bit more um approachable, and and co-work was what we we all linked into. And co-work's been brilliant, although one of the challenges is that if you've got cowork running on your laptop um and you then want to do something while you're out and about, you can interact via dispatch, which is one of the features we can use on your mobile, but that relies on the laptop still running. So if you find yourself in San Francisco, for example, and trying to get some information off it and that laptop's not connecting anymore, then then you can't can't do anything anymore. And that's where other providers like Perplexity Computer and and Manaus, who are are good pals of the show and they now listen, having met them at the conference and uh Victor there will be giving us a like and subscribe and show with the rest of the Manaus gang. But it's these ones where they're they're always with you. Um and Codex is sort of, as you say, by stealth, because it's not done the pivot of saying here's a non-tech friendly version like Cowork did, it's continued being Codex, yet taking on the non-coding type approaches where you want to prep for a meeting or do some research or produce some documents. Codex hasn't created a new app for that, it's very much heading towards this OpenAI super app, which is going to combine Codecs and Chat GPT and um their Atlas browser all into one significant product, which I think will probably come later this year. Um and so actually, without saying Codex now works for the lay person, Codex is now working for the lay person. And we've probably not covered that enough, um, which is why it's sort of coming through in stealth. And what's just been released last night is now Codex is in your ChatGPT mobile app. So if you do want to ask something off of it, you don't need your laptop to be running, and you you you can use your dev boxes and your remote environments to continue a conversation while you're out on your dog walk or you sat uh at a conference in San Francisco or or you're trying to prep for a meeting and you've forgotten what your notes are. Um you can say to Codex, can you can you send over the summary of what I need to be asking Mal this morning? And it comes through to your mobile app. So if you've not looked at Codex, it's probably going to be our tool of the week as well, well worth downloading. It's available on both Mac and Windows, not just Mac and uh like we touched on last week, a lot of these are very much Apple Forward products. It's it's available now, you can look at it and it can help you prep for your meetings, it can help you digest those long-running documents, um, do all the things that if you're using co-work, you can utilize it, but now you can do it on the go as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah, so so I absolutely everybody out there do do have a look at it because it is, you know, as Matt says, as as good if not better than than Clawed now. Obviously, it is kind of like a bit of an arms race where everybody keeps leapfrogging each other, but open AI is is is right up there right now. And and actually I think is it it's a bit cheaper than Clawed right now. So Claude Anthropic is not. Yeah, yeah. One of the things about Anthropic is you know it is um it is struggling for for compute because so many people are using Claw code now that actually they're they're putting the prices up because they've got to try and throttle some of the some of the demand. I think your stat and and one that that I saw if you were over in San Francisco and you actually saw somebody from Claude Up on stage, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 22:01

We did, yeah. The the head of industries are probably the the standout presentation for me, but obviously we're big fanboys of anthropic. So seeing their their demand, they they'd modeled demand being sort of the 5x and and actually they're hitting 80x demand. So the presentation head of industries was basically a salesperson, but um the head of sales for for anthropic and talk about how they they've geared up for that unprecedented level of demand and how they're they're not just turning people away by not responding to leads, which sounds very much like our industry, doesn't it? Yeah and it w it was an impressive presentation, but you can understand why suddenly they're they're scrambling and and you would do that, right? If if you've got unprecedented demands, I mean if you've got charge for it.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, that AT AT exactly ATX is like insane. That's so so matte. Um so so OpenAI did do have a look at codex. Um also OpenAI have been in the news because they are and indeed anthropic as well, are both creating um kind of new areas of their business where and again this comes uh partly from your your sojourn over to San Fran, um where people are talking about FDEs. So let's introduce that acronym. What does it mean?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

So we actually touched on this without realizing over the last couple of weeks when we were looking at the AI launches by the residential property CRMs, sort of the um obviously RePit have alluded to it, or is it Cortex by Street Rex with their AI offering and alto with a partnership? So being it's great that people are bringing out these agentic options within in their platforms, but who's actually going to configure and deploy these when when agents a lot of times struggle to even get the system doing email templates and such like? And and actually FDEs has has come out of that and they're basically forward-deployed engineers. So what's anthropic and open AI have realized is it's great having this power and then this opportunity, but there's a capability overhang. And we we know that there's loads of things we want to do and just don't have the time in the day to sit down and understand it. You know, you've got your squad of rain males, I've um I've got one, and it's like I there's other things I want to build out that I know if I took the time would would save me a lot of time, but it's that chicken and egg situation, right? And anthropic and open AI have realized that actually the consulting firms, the more traditional ones, aren't really engaging in with this. And and for a long time the traditional consulting firms were like, well, this isn't going to be a thing, it's gonna be over, and and you need to deal with us still. And I think they're realising that now, but Anthropic and OpenAI have thought, well, actually, oh yeah, we'll we'll just set up these businesses ourselves. So OpenAI is called Deploy Co. or the deployment company, and it's very much geared towards those enterprise businesses who want to get more out of OpenAI but not knowing how, that they'll now send their own forward deployed engineers to sit inside those businesses and set up and then build engineers for them. Sorry, build agents for them. Um and that's very much four billion in acquiring consulting firms and setting up this this unit. And um forward deployed engineers was very much the acronym I took away from the San Francisco trip because there's not just these huge companies like these two, but a lot of smaller businesses who are helping with that capability overhang of saying, look, you want to get this stuff in place. We know you you understand it, but you just don't have the the time or resources to do it. And it's very much I sort of said tongue-in-cheek the other week about GCG being ideally placed for this, but uh, we've already got a couple of full deployed engineers in place ready to build this sort of stuff out. And it's it's basically devs in your team who can do AI, but it's a great acronym, right? Yeah, love it.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yeah, and we we will undoubtedly um be flinging that around quite a lot more um as we go through the rest of this year, for sure. Um all right, um just time for a couple more bits and pieces. Some nice gossip from OpenAI reportedly preparing legal action against Apple. Not content with having a court case right now with uh Elon Musk uh that's that's been playing out and will continue, I think, into next week when Sam Altman takes the takes the stand. Also, yeah, it looks like they're gonna pick a fight with one of the other big dogs in the room, Apple, because Apple has not been nice enough in the App Store about um Open AI. That's kind of it, isn't it? It's it's it's basically about the deployment, sorry, of of of um OpenAI of Chat GPT through the Apple deal that it had with them, basically.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Seriously, when when Apple Intelligence wasn't launching, but even before Apple Intelligence, this was what if you're asking Syria questions too hard, it would hand over to ChatGPT, and then you get the beeps and the words in your ear, and eventually it comes back with a stock response, and they're pretty frustrated that that integration was crap and um it's not got the level of subscribers and and just oversight that they were expecting, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, that crap is that technical term uh for the the deployment is it's probably an acronym. Um so yeah, listen, um so so that one um again, you know, you you don't tend to uh there are a lot of people, and again, referencing the app store who have been very unhappy with the Apple App Store, not least Elon Musk is on the stage when he was uh crying about the fact that uh the OpenAI's GPT app was top of the charts and his ex AI wasn't getting anywhere. So yeah, listen, it it's it's Apple's ecosystem. I don't know if you necessarily get to fight um because uh basically they kind of dictate what really happens. But we're gonna be interested to see how that one plays out. Again, people going sour on their partnerships. Microsoft is quietly shopping around for an open AI replacement, um, and also cancelling uh some of its clawed code licenses. So uh, you know, again, it just seems that there's all these tectonic plates are kind of just crunching around each other and moving in slightly different directions. I thought the Microsoft um cancelling clawed code uh was quite interesting because that they're gonna be trying to use their own one, aren't they? Microsoft basically.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Exactly. I don't know how the devs are gonna react to that, but very much focusing them into the GitHub copilot CLIs instead of using code, clause code.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Yeah, I don't know if anybody's been using codilot out there, but um it remains one of the most frustrating experiences of my life is trying to get Copilot to do anything uh particularly.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Just for the geeks, it's it's GitHub Copilot, so it's the code one rather than the Windows Copilot. So slightly different, but yeah, frustrating. And stupidly the same name.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

I mean comments. Anyway, um, all right, so that is our AI and tech news. Let us very quickly dive into our occasional series, Weird AI of the week. So in Weird AI of the week, we do try and just uh bring something from um you know out in the normal world into the world of AI. Um so if this week is the Chelsea Flower Show, everybody. I'm sure most of you are going to attend. Um but there has been uh a row over the fences of the Chelsea Flower Show um about AI because one of the guys who he's he's an award-winning horticulturalist called Matt Keatley, and he's launched an app that can automate garden designs, and this has not gone well in the uh in the um um the the lawns of SW3 because uh his new app, Spacelift, can replicate the work of garden designers and create spaces from scratch. Many people who are listening to this will know that AI's been able to do that for quite a while, really. So the fact that he's kind of formalised it and is launching it on the eve of the Chelsea Flower show. Yeah, how's your um what's your take on this, Matt?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Be downloading the app and um pointing at my back garden, I think. Because as you say, even though you've been able to do it via AI for a while, just having that uh award-winning horticulturist's take on it is um it's gonna be a different matter for me.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, absolutely. It's gonna give uh apparently people a starting point of plan, the confidence to actually create something, not just imagine it. There we go. Exactly. I'm feeling a lot more confident. That's our weird AI of the week. And uh next up, our tool of the week. And Matt, um, as you say, I think we've We've covered this a little bit already in this in this app, but um but Claude sorry, Claude But uh OpenAI's uh codex is uh something that people need to be paying attention to this week, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

That's exactly it. If you've got the ChatGPT app, then you're more than likely going to start to see it would come out with the latest update anyway. But if if you're a Windows or a Mac user, well worth downloading and having a look. And and if you're using cowork, just uh chuck some of the situations that you'd normally put a cowork at codex and and see the uh the difference that comes in between the two.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Absolutely always worth checking out the the yeah, the comparing and contrasting because there can be some phenomenal stuff. And I actually kind of um often get I'll get Gemini and Claude and uh ChatGPT almost to ask them all the same question and then see what kind of comes back. And one of the things we were doing this week, one of the projects in the team, um, you know, all three of them came back with the same kind of answer, and that was just really reassuring because you were like, actually, that that probably means that that is the best way to go. So, yeah, really good for kind of checks um and balances on some of the projects.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

I think a um a standout for me actually from from last week, did I mention I've been away, was you didn't know someone talking about Replit, and Replit's a vibe coding platform for those listening, um, where Replit uses Anthropic and Claude as the model underneath. So when you're vibe coding building something, but if you ask a particularly um pressing question or you want it to double check something that it's come back with, it says, Well, hold on, I'm gonna call the architect, and the architect that it calls in is actually then using um Chat GPT um and using that as the more we talked about this the more technical developer before rather than sort of a design-led one, but I love the fact that Replit are using both models and and the architect is the one that's sort of almost the the teacher coming in to check your homework sort of approach. So um yeah, oh no, if the if the big five coding platforms are doing that, there's nothing stopping us doing it as well.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah, 100%. All right, that is all we've got time for this week. Um thank you very much indeed for listening in. We'll be back next week with um plenty more property and AI news. Matt, um, what are you up to for the rest of the weekend? Are you just sleeping?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Uh it's uh Everton v. Sunderland tomorrow, so it's the last game of the season at home, my last season ticket season, so it'll be a sad day, but it's also next week at Google IO on Tuesday and Wednesday. So we'll be keeping a very close eye on what drops from that.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Yeah, exactly. So uh again, you will have heard that that OpenAI has been very noisy. You know, actually this week we've had Microsoft at X AI, we've had uh Claude, all of them, and and um Google has been very, very quiet over the last sort of three or four weeks um while everybody else has been piling the new model. So we anticipate, don't we, that there will be um something quite significant coming out of that. So we will be able to do that. Isn't there? Definitely, yeah, yeah, which I can't wait to get my hands on um because I'm a big fan of VO 3.1. So we're what this one is, is it looks looks very exciting. So we will keep you up to date. Uh do listen in again next week. We will catch up with you again in seven days. Have great weeks, take care.