AI: Get onboard or get left behind with Mal McCallion of ModelProp

In this razor-sharp episode of The Viking Chats, Kristjan Byfield sits down with one of PropTech’s original pioneers—Mal McCallion—to unpack the message every UK letting agent, estate agent and landlord needs to hear:

AI isn’t coming. It’s already here.

And if you’re not on board? You’re at risk of being left behind.

🧠 From PrimeLocation to Prophetic Predictions

With 24+ years in property and tech, Mal’s résumé reads like a PropTech hall of fame: launching PrimeLocation, rolling out Zoopla, and building tools for The Guild, GetAgent and more. Now heading ModelProp, he helps agents understand and adopt AI—before it’s too late.

Kristjan and Mal don’t hold back. They describe AI not as evolution, but revolution. Kristjan puts it best: “This is our generation’s industrial revolution.”

🤖 AI is Rewriting the Rules of Search, Service & Success

Forget SEO. Landlords are skipping Google and asking ChatGPT for their ideal agent—and it’s working. Kristjan shares real-world examples of Base Property gaining clients via AI prompts like:

“I want an independent agent with great tenant care.”

Future clients won’t search by area—they’ll search by values. Only AI-literate, values-driven agents will stand out.

🔍 How Portals Could Be Dethroned

Rightmove, beware. Mal critiques the portals’ complacency and highlights how AI-powered search offers more than listings: from Offsted school checks to panoramic views and nuanced prompts, AI is reshaping property discovery.

Soon, tenants will say: “Find me a home near work, with a kind landlord and a dog-friendly policy.” And AI will deliver—instantly.

💬 Let Machines Handle Machine Work

AI won’t replace agents—it will free them. Picture this:

• Voice AI answers enquiries and books viewings 24/7
• Maintenance is triaged before your team even sees it
• Clients get fast, consistent replies—even out of hours

It’s not perfect. But as Kristjan says, neither are humans. Speed, reliability and service win.

📉 Let Go of Perfectionism—Or Get Left Behind

Agents often expect 100% perfection from tech—yet settle for 75% from staff. That mindset is outdated. The competition isn’t other agencies anymore—it’s the AI that never sleeps.

Adapt or risk irrelevance.

💡 How to Embrace the AI Advantage

This episode doesn’t just theorise—it delivers tactics:

• Try ChatGPT’s Deep Research for prospecting
• Audit your suppliers: no AI strategy = red flag
• Explore tools like Ask Vinnie and voice AI

Kristjan also reveals how The Depositary is using AI to boost performance and fairness in tenancy conclusion—minimising dispute friction and maximising outcomes.

🚀 A Call to Agents & Landlords

London landlords: this is your glimpse into modern agency. Agents: this is your blueprint for staying competitive.

📢 Tune in now and take your first step into the AI-powered future—because it’s already transforming our industry.

Transcript

May 21, 2025

The Viking Chat: Mal McCallion - Transcript

00:00:00

 
Kristjan Byfield: Go.
Mal McCallion: That's very
Kristjan Byfield: Right.
Mal McCallion: nice.
Kristjan Byfield: Cool. There we go. Right. Hello everybody and welcome to the latest episode of the Viking Chats. And I'm delighted to be joined today by none other than Mr. Mal McCallian. So hey Mal. Um,
Mal McCallion: There you go.
Kristjan Byfield: for those of you who do not know Mal, Mal has been in and around the world of prop tech, residential prop tech for 20 odd years,
Mal McCallion: 24.
Kristjan Byfield: 25 years.
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: You wouldn't know it looking at his baby face. Um, but M, I think to my knowledge kind of your first kind of you were involved with Right Move. Is that correct? Or was it
Mal McCallion: so it was Zupla. So well well very early on in 2000, like way before most people um listening to this were probably born. Um I was um involved in doing prime location. So I helped set up prime location uh back in 2000. We sold that to Daily Mail in 2005. uh and then messed around a bit with some magazines for a while and then um helped set up Zupla back in 2008. So yes, been on that side of the fence, the the challenges challenges to write Move um and yeah, I've had a a lot of fun doing it.
 
 

00:01:08

 
Kristjan Byfield: and then your journey out the back of that since since you days. Give us some other of your big hits.
Mal McCallion: Yeah, listen. So, um had some great fun working with with people like the Guild running their tech business for a while. Um been working with with Get Agent and others and and consulting a lot with with startups. um and uh some great entrepreneurs working very much in the property technology space and have just really yeah enjoyed um seeing how those businesses grow, how they solve problems and then to this point now where um a year and a half two years ago um I set up model prop when uh when when AI first started to appear uh and have spent the last couple of years um essentially um helping to demystify AI for agents is is kind of my primary primary goal. Help with AI literacy. I think that's a really really important part of of my job and I think a part of of all of our jobs is help people to understand what AI is and as an aside I remember 25 years ago when we were starting prime location spending a lot of time understandably explaining what the internet was and now 25 years later I was learning what the what AI is
 
 

00:02:08

 
Kristjan Byfield: Do
Mal McCallion: so
Kristjan Byfield: it all over again.
Mal McCallion: you know they say history doesn't repeat but it rhymes and it's it's so fascinating just because this this is a fundamental change in technology as we're going to discuss um and it's going to bring so much so much opportunity, I think, for for great letting agents to be able to to really change how they do things and really kind of put themselves um above their competitors.
Kristjan Byfield: So, we've given today's topic quite punchy, but I like it. It's AI. Get on board or get left behind. Um, which do you know what? I I I love being a little bit more pushy on it. Um, I feel there's been a lot of reassuring going on with people at the moment about AI. Don't worry,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: it's not going to impact you. It's not going to change your job. It's not going to change your company. It absolutely is. I was um essentially before we before we started recording, I was chatting to the lovely Toby Martin yesterday.
 
 

00:03:07

 
Kristjan Byfield: So listeners will have hopefully by now by the time they listen to this will have listened to the chat with uh Toby Martin
Mal McCallion: I'm good.
Kristjan Byfield: about how you hone your AI voice. Um, and as I said in there, as I've said a few times recently, I I genuinely legitimately think this is our generation's industrial revolution. I
Mal McCallion: I
Kristjan Byfield: think
Mal McCallion: can
Kristjan Byfield: whilst
Mal McCallion: please.
Kristjan Byfield: the internet changed, whilst the internet brought an element of change to our society, fundamentally we've still generally done things more or less the same way. we just had this incredible information resource at our fingertips and obviously streamlined communication. So it kind of sped up what we did. It streamline we're able to do but this is now 10x that right 100x that we're looking at.
Mal McCallion: I
Kristjan Byfield: You
Mal McCallion: passed.
Kristjan Byfield: know the more the more things I see the more things I read the more demos I see of what people are playing around with. Um there's a there's a great newsletter I read if people are trying to kind of wrap their head around it.
 
 

00:04:14

 
Kristjan Byfield: And at times, I will be honest, I do find this newsletter a little bit overwhelming because they've got like five different channels and I've signed up to all of them. They've got one that's like general AI, one's for founders, one's about security, one's about this, that um but it's DLDR. Um if people don't know, so stand it's an abbreviation for too long, didn't read. Um so they keep it really short. Um, but if you want to have your mind completely blown about the litany of AI things that are happening, skim
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: that, get that, subscribe to that, get that in your inbox and just
Mal McCallion: Everyone
Kristjan Byfield: can um, commit
Mal McCallion: light.
Kristjan Byfield: just having a little read, having a little look. Um, I think what's really exciting at the moment is not only what's happening, but obviously because we're at this really exciting embriionic stage of everyone trying to figure out the multitude of lits of how they can leverage this technology.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: The cost to implement it at the moment generally is so low.
 
 

00:05:15

 
Mal McCallion: Yeah. I couldn't agree more and I think and it is plummeting, you know. So actually I think it's something like 250 times cheaper to use chat GPT now than it was when it first came out you know two years ago year and a half ago. Um and it is it and it's just continuing to go down. So the cost of computers continue to go down and and as a result of that I think as you say we we've all got to be prepared. This is not and this is not a drill. You know we are going to find ourselves very very quickly in an era where intelligence is everywhere.
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: All right. And that that is the big kind of change in our that we have to get used to is it's no longer going to be about what you know because
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: you're going to know everything and
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: you're
Kristjan Byfield: And
Mal McCallion: going to
Kristjan Byfield: it's
Mal McCallion: have
Kristjan Byfield: a seismic
 
 

00:05:55

 
Mal McCallion: everything.
Kristjan Byfield: shift, right? Like one of the big changes we've seen in bass already um is we are seeing more and more leads come to us because people are defaulting to engines like chat GPT is their default search engine.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: You know, you no longer do you type in good letting agent in Google and you get your generic three or four sponsored listings and your typical top 10 agents in London who've spent a fortune on SEO backlinks to
Mal McCallion: Yes.
Kristjan Byfield: make sure they perform for those key tasks. It doesn't really tell you anything. I think what's what's
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: fascinating with chat GPT is this conversation element to it, right? I mean obviously they they are predominantly LLMs large language models as we know but I think what is what's so exciting about using them you know it's it's like having the world's best assistant in your back pocket who
Mal McCallion: Hello.
Kristjan Byfield: never sleeps never has a bad day doesn't get everything right but never gets pissed off doesn't take anything personally
 
 

00:07:00

 
Mal McCallion: Yep.
Kristjan Byfield: you know um
Mal McCallion: On
Kristjan Byfield: but
Mal McCallion: it as well.
Kristjan Byfield: you know we've we we're starting ing to get landlord leads coming in where chat GPT has been recommending base and what's interesting is um we've been asking the landlords we've inquire with in fact we literally just put a property live I think yesterday or today which has come through chat GPT from
Mal McCallion: Wow.
Kristjan Byfield: South London Peekom an area we don't really have much presence presence in at all so that's really interesting from an SEO perspective we wouldn't have performed in a traditional sense of the word down there
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: um but we asked the landlord what she put in when she was searching. And the interesting thing is, like I said, they're not putting in local letting agents. She described her ideal letting agent. So, she
Mal McCallion: Well,
Kristjan Byfield: went, I want to work with an independent letting agent that has a fairly small operation, but has a that is well established, has a strong reputation for customer service.
 
 

00:07:55

 
Kristjan Byfield: Importantly, and we've seen this as a common theme with several of the landlord leads we've had recently, they actually put in the prompt, they want an agent that
Mal McCallion: Amazing.
Kristjan Byfield: prides itself on its on the experience the tenants get or, you know, wants an agent that looks after the tenants just as well as it does the landlord. We've
Mal McCallion: And
Kristjan Byfield: seen that multiple times in prompts.
Mal McCallion: yeah, and and that is happening as you say right now. And it's really really important that everybody listening understands that. Now there's there was a news article very recently about the mail online their um online director just saying how much their uh e-commerce platform has been impacted by Google's AI reviews because people aren't just clicking on stuff anymore. They are going they're using AI reviews sorry overviews um to to to answer questions and then they're not going further down the screen to actually then click on the the links. So, you know, we we've heard that 34% down, you know, so so the SEO, the old search engine optimization that is really starting to to fall apart and as you say, people are going on to Chachi PT or Claude or Gemini, these AI large language models and are using them to find very specifically the thing that they are looking for.
 
 

00:09:05

 
Mal McCallion: And it will not be long before tenants are doing exactly the same and
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: are searching for their dream property, perfect property. And you are going to need to be with an agent and this goes to your point right at the start that understands AI that is changing how they how they get out there because if you don't then already you are starting to be bypassed by this technology.
Kristjan Byfield: Well, again, I mean, you know, you So, you know, let's shift onto the conversation about the portals. you know, um they should be nervous, I think, and particularly right move with with the um fortress that they've built and and held for 20 years. Um
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: I thought it was I I thought it was interesting. They've just done their recent results and I know they are predicting another 10%
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: of revenue growth next year which historically
Mal McCallion: They are
Kristjan Byfield: I would say they've got it nailed on because they'll just incredible to achieve offset any market loss.
 
 

00:10:08

 
Kristjan Byfield: I think genuinely for the first time, you know, we we've we've looked we we've had critical moments where right moves monopoly could have been toppled and I think the most recent of those was co
Mal McCallion: I agree.
Kristjan Byfield: um you know there was there was a glaring opportunity there for agents to um really turn the tables uh
Mal McCallion: Yes.
Kristjan Byfield: whilst there was no market um and switch right move off. I think it would have it would have been a very interesting uh time. But
Mal McCallion: Yes.
Kristjan Byfield: um nonetheless, I I am not per se anti-right move despite my my history of relationship with them and and are very uh public falling out five years ago.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: You know, business is business and I know there are lots of agents up and down the country who get phenomenal value from right move. Um however getting back on the point of AI um when we look at the consumer experience you know what are the things that consumers people looking to rent or buy what are the things they hate?
 
 

00:11:10

 
Kristjan Byfield: They hate property that doesn't have enough information. Um, and despite attempts to improve that through the material information, that obviously all got chucked in the bin recently and everyone's confused with consumer protection laws and everything else. Thank you,
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: trading standards.
Mal McCallion: that was
Kristjan Byfield: Um,
Mal McCallion: neat.
Kristjan Byfield: but people want more more and accurate information. Um, they want a response. You know, we know that that 50% of leads that that go unanswered has been unchanged in probably the 20 years portals have been around.
Mal McCallion: Yeah. And it's international. It's exactly the same. Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. Doesn't really change. Um, and we know the other frustration is fake stock or or outdated listings,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: intentionally fake stock that was never available or listings that are long gone but are kept on as a kind of vanity or or or lead attraction magnet. Um, but for the consumer looking, uh, that's not what they want. And like we talked about now, just like landlords are now going to be able to search with greater success the agent that they want to work with.
 
 

00:12:20

 
Kristjan Byfield: And again, we all work different ways. There are some landlords out there who will love to have a really gung-ho kind of cutthroat sales thing. You know, turn around fast, get the most rent, move on. Um, and there will be others that will take a slightly more um tenant or resident centric um approach to rentals. uh but it it gives them that nuance and so as you said logic dictates tenants are going to do the same right
Mal McCallion: Yeah, 100%.
Kristjan Byfield: I want to find this property I want to live in this area this is where and also again it's that conversation so it's a bit like again thinking of ch you know AI like your personal assistant if you were going to brief your personal assistant to go out and find you your home you'd give them all the key information right you tell them right I need to commute to here for work these are where my four best mates
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: These are my favorite restaurants. These
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: are the things I like to do on weekends.
 
 

00:13:18

 
Kristjan Byfield: Like,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: this is my budget. This is when I need to move. These are things it absolutely has to have. And then on top of that, ideally,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: I'd love it to be with an agent who has a good reput because that's the other thing, right? Right now, tenants absolutely can't do any filtering about who they work with for that
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: property. it is just that clean search and they hope that the agent or if it's through the likes of open rent or whatever the private landlord is one of the good ones. Um but again like landlords now you know tenants will be able to frame that search
Mal McCallion: What?
Kristjan Byfield: in a much greater way and there you know are people still going to want to go on the likes of right move and zupller and scroll through property p*** pro probably
Mal McCallion: Mhm. I think that's still going to be a there's still going to be a market for that. But but I do want to and look you know for for me I'm a portal boy like I said you know prime location zupla I I love I think you know what what they brought was this aggregation and and simplicity of searching that previously you had to go through scrappy like bits of paper and magazines and pop into your local agent all that
 
 

00:14:25

 
Kristjan Byfield: You
Mal McCallion: sort of
Kristjan Byfield: all
Mal McCallion: stuff.
Kristjan Byfield: remember the days of printing out availables list in your office and handing them to people. I say we all hopefully be people listening to this going, "What are you
Mal McCallion: What the
Kristjan Byfield: talking
Mal McCallion: hell are you
Kristjan Byfield: about?"
Mal McCallion: talking about? What was loot?
Kristjan Byfield: But as we often reminisce, the app the card of the box of applicant cards on
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: your desk, your printed off availables list on the coffee table in your office or in your little like dispenser that you'd have on the front of your shop or office.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um yeah, your mail outs, you postings, you go and drop them on the local coffee shop tables and all the fun and frolics that we used to
Mal McCallion: gorilla.
Kristjan Byfield: do. Glamour. The glamour
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: of uh Yeah. and window cards actually being something other than a window decoration. Um,
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Actually,
 
 

00:15:08

 
Kristjan Byfield: days of of
Mal McCallion: yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: 20 25 years ago
Mal McCallion: Yeah. And and I think you know so so so portals I think have have served a really good purpose over that period of time but but kind of like print a little bit you know that the new world and new way of doing things is coming along like a train and it's going to change them and and they have choices you know so again it's it's not that I am anti even distinct I'm certainly not anti the the the other portals but but right move I I have a particular problem with in that it has continued to increase its prices as you just said about 10% this year even though inflation is two and a half although it's now three and a today.
Kristjan Byfield: I mean look that that's what they hope their revenue will grow by. I mean
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: when we were a customer of of right move on average it was 20% yearon year.
Mal McCallion: exactly right. So, there will be some people who dive in and say, "Okay, fine."
 
 

00:15:52

 
Mal McCallion: And some people resist and that's why that's why it end up there. But I do think that they have been scooping money out of the industry for way way way too long. And it's not like they they innovating with it or using it for anything interesting. So, you know, letting agents out there are paying through the nose for it. They know that a good chunk of that is just going to buy back shares or to, you know, for dividends or whatever. It's not that it's being invested in this industry and helping anybody. So that's
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. And I think that's I think that's the greatest frustration I think for most agents. I think fundamentally when you get past it, most agents understand the fundamental value in right move. They just feel like they are having money pilered from their pocket
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: for
Mal McCallion: And that's
Kristjan Byfield: no other legitimate reason other than right move camp.
Mal McCallion: they can exactly right. So,
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: so that that's my big problem.
 
 

00:16:37

 
Mal McCallion: So, so I think that AI now coming along and how a portal is going to look in the future. Um, as you say, it it is true that it's easier to talk into your phone. We speak three times on average faster than we um than we write, than we type. So humans being humans, we are going to find ourselves using either the most efficient or another way of putting it the laziest way of communicating and that is going to be talking into our phones and that is going to change how people interact with with portals or how people interact with property discovery. So if you take that as as as a given and I think you know the technology uh and and we use a here model prop you know we've got a voice AI out there that that's so good and actually it behaves like an AI receptionist and literally will will field calls can go and check book viewings it's so immediate and cool um that pretty soon and as you say this is going to be faster than the internet the internet kind of you could argue up until the um the global financial crisis in 2008 there was still a lot of print around suddenly then everybody looked at went what the hell are we in this for here.
 
 

00:17:36

 
Mal McCallion: Um, I think this is going to be a more fundamental change, quicker change. Next two, three years, we're all going to be talking to our phones and describing our dream job, our dream car, our dream property.
Kristjan Byfield: You ain't even talking to your phone. You'll have a you'll have a headphone in constantly. You'll have a device on your neck. You'll have a wristband. Whatever it is, some
Mal McCallion: Yes.
Kristjan Byfield: people, I think, will just get an implant.
Mal McCallion: So,
Kristjan Byfield: I'd see
Mal McCallion: well,
Kristjan Byfield: you do that just with even RFID chips and
Mal McCallion: yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: stuff like
Mal McCallion: exactly.
Kristjan Byfield: that.
Mal McCallion: To get into clubs was one that I saw.
Kristjan Byfield: And yeah,
Mal McCallion: Go.
Kristjan Byfield: it's you know your glasses the is it the Ray-B bands ones
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: that
Mal McCallion: It's the meta meta romance. Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: you know have the vibration the the audio bone that it
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: basically vibrates and picks up your voice and you can hear you don't need a headphone.
 
 

00:18:18

 
Kristjan Byfield: phone
Mal McCallion: Yeah. And it's and it's and it's recording. So, you know, so it's recording everything you watch and it's gathering all that data and that information. It's learning about you and it knows that you've got a new baby that's just arrived and it knows that you may need to move house soon as a result. and you know actually this child is coming up to school age so we got got to try and find like the right schools and things like that. So all that stuff, you're not even going to have to tell it like you say.
Kristjan Byfield: the imminent wave is also the next wave of this is is agentic right is aentic AI so for those who don't know what that phrase means it's it's where AI will take a more active ive role in facilitating things for you. they will genuinely become your assistant, your
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: you know you so you won't just say find me as we as we highlighted earlier here's a really detailed parameter of what my ideal home looks like
 
 

00:19:03

 
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: right what are the five properties you found that most closely match that criteria great I want to go and see those Thursday afternoon book
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: them in with all the agents factory and travel time between the properties
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Absolutely.
Kristjan Byfield: and
Mal McCallion: And and one of the things
Kristjan Byfield: Right.
Mal McCallion: Yeah. the the the some of the searches that you can do now using so so anybody out there who's got chat GPT um if you if you're paying the $20 you've got the plus version you get 10 of these deep research um options every single month right all right so just underneath where you put in the prompt there's a button that says deep research
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: so I give that a go practice this is all about the AR literacy piece and put in a search so just any old property or or any kind of property think of your dream property type it in hit deep research it will go away for like 5 10 minutes. All right.
 
 

00:19:51

 
Mal McCallion: And it will do all this searching for you. And this is the the agentic piece as you as you say, Christian. Um it will go and and if you say you've got it needs to be near an outstanding school, it will go and check Offstead. And you can see it going and checking Offstead and coming back with results of those schools. You can see it going and you know, if you want to see view, it's going and checking photos to find out C views. So this is unbelievably helpful. You know, it's literally but suddenly and and and more so talking about the portals, this this is 100% of the market. So it won't just go and search right move.
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: It will search right move on the market zupla and Asian websites.
Kristjan Byfield: Well,
Mal McCallion: So
Kristjan Byfield: and also open rent, private landlords, you
Mal McCallion: yeah
Kristjan Byfield: know, all the sources,
Mal McCallion: everything
Kristjan Byfield: no
Mal McCallion: is
Kristjan Byfield: bouncing around. And again, why did the portals do well?
 
 

00:20:34

 
Kristjan Byfield: Convenience,
Mal McCallion: convenience.
Kristjan Byfield: right?
Mal McCallion: Absolutely.
Kristjan Byfield: It's why done well. It's why Right Move clinching that that top 10 SEO position,
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: you know, which is something doesn't often get talked about, but Right Move is a top 10 UK website and has been for most of the last 20 years.
Mal McCallion: 100%.
Kristjan Byfield: You know, it is your, you know, it is your let's Google something. you know, you hear right move used in the same terms as Google, Hoover, you know, whatever these these these brands that have became become verbs.
Mal McCallion: Yeah, exactly.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, you know, and you hear it on panel shows and news broadcasts and blah blah blah, right? Movies referred to as an overarching term
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: of, but it was it was that thing, wasn't it? was rather than walking down your local high street and walking into 10 different estate agents offices and having the myriad of interactions that
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: would be
Mal McCallion: saying the same
Kristjan Byfield: 20
 
 

00:21:30

 
Mal McCallion: thing
Kristjan Byfield: years
Mal McCallion: over
Kristjan Byfield: ago.
Mal McCallion: and over again. Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: 20 lists shoved in your lap. Then you go and sit in a greasy spoon cafe and wade through the list and figure out what if anything you wanted to look like.
Mal McCallion: good
Kristjan Byfield: Go
Mal McCallion: times.
Kristjan Byfield: back to those agents offices only discover that half of the ones that you shortlisted are already gone.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um and yeah, what did portals do? Hey, I don't need to do that anymore. Here we go. Here's everything in my lap and I can fire off the inquiries.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: And yeah, you know, AI is now the next chapter in
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: that. It is taking that and refining it with extra criteria, with extra definition. Um and
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: and like we said soon also the step of facilitating viewings.
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's and it is not very it is not very difficult and it is going to be a very simple step for for that to start to happen.
 
 

00:22:17

 
Mal McCallion: And again, you know, with with the voice stuff, it's it's there. And so so I think that the portals have got challenges and you know, and how they respond to this challenge is going to be interesting. As you said, Right Moves um Right Moves strategy seems to be um closing its ears and saying la very loudly and carrying on charging into um charging agents as much as possible um and more uh every single year for the foreseeable. Um and they they've got a strategy going up to 2028 where where that is exactly what they're going to do. Um so it remains to be seen whether they're going to change. Um but you know into that space as you say comes this idea that actually if you can um ensure that you are are are keeping an eye on ARI you are working with AI you're optimizing your sites you're working with others um that are able to do that for you and with you um then you've you've got an opportunity right you know this this is an opportunity to start thinking about what life looks like without that um armlock um around you and I know Christian you released the armlock about five years ago and I know that that's been that's been Right.
 
 

00:23:17

 
Mal McCallion: And I can see that the freedom that that
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah,
Mal McCallion: brought. Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: I've
Mal McCallion: it's
Kristjan Byfield: heard a rumor there is a room somewhere that still has my picture on a dart board and I think following this podcast it might it might get some new
Mal McCallion: back up
Kristjan Byfield: vis
Mal McCallion: again.
Kristjan Byfield: extra points scored against it.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um
Mal McCallion: But but so yes, I think it's I think everything's up for grabs and and I think this is a really really exciting time. So yeah, the the absolute priority is learn. Go go go go go go and find, as you say, listen to use TLDDR and there's other ones like um the AI Daily and things that that really are great digests of what's happening out in the big bad world with AI. Um but yeah, going forwards we are all going to need just like now we we all know how to use the internet. We all kind of like second nature. The quicker you can understand AI and see what's coming down the track, then the the faster you are going to be able to um to to ingest it into your business and to be servicing your customers, new clients better.
 
 

00:24:07

 
Mal McCallion: And that means that means
Kristjan Byfield: And
Mal McCallion: more
Kristjan Byfield: look,
Mal McCallion: business.
Kristjan Byfield: so I think this this brings me brings us on quite nicely to um another phrase used in agency which I I feel is a complete dichotomy. I think it's it's so true and also so untrue. this this safety blanket, the agent's issue of people buy from people.
Mal McCallion: H.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, and on one side absolutely when they like those people, when those people make them feel liked and valued and when those people deliver a result.
Mal McCallion: Mhm.
Kristjan Byfield: However, what we all know is there are lots of people within our industry that don't deliver that experience. Um, I saw uh an interesting one today. JP John Paul who used to be uh behind Castle Dean now has Prospector Pro.
Mal McCallion: Okay.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, he posted an
Mal McCallion: Okay.
Kristjan Byfield: interesting one uh in his little group. I can't remember if this morning or yesterday, but basically saying he's been reaching out to a lot of agents recently.
 
 

00:25:14

 
Kristjan Byfield: They're in the market. can't remember if they're market if they're buying or selling. I think they're looking to buy. Um but his insights were fascinating. He was saying, you know, it is a regular occurrence that it is taking between two days and a week to get a reply. And this is someone who is reaching out going, "Oh, you've got something I want to buy."
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um
Mal McCallion: And it's
Kristjan Byfield: and
Mal McCallion: it's it's a permanent problem, isn't it? You know, like you say at the start, it's it's something that has not changed over 20 odd years. And it is something that when you speak to agents in Australia, I speak to portals in Australia and in in America, it's it's exactly the same. It is just the last thing that people seem to get to. Um and you know, with Prospector Pro, great piece of kit. um you know and others that there are ways of now um making sure that that happens.
 
 

00:26:03

 
Mal McCallion: You
Kristjan Byfield: But
Mal McCallion: know
Kristjan Byfield: I
Mal McCallion: whe
Kristjan Byfield: think there's a tendency with agency with tech and and I'm sure this will apply also with AI. There's a tendency to expect if not perfection absolute excellence from tech to a higher standard of what an agency will expect of its staff. Uh so they will you know they will have a member of staff who they are moderately happy with you know 75% of the time they do a good job and 25% of the time nothing disastrous, but they do drop the ball quite often. Um, and then they will be presented with a product that can solve that problem, but it doesn't do extra stuff or but it takes five minutes of data entry to facilitate that. But because this isn't integrated with every software product that the agent uses and their CRM and everything else, it's safer to stick with Frank
Mal McCallion: Yes. Inefficient.
Kristjan Byfield: at 75% performance. They're not for a tech product at 80 or 85% performance. And I think this is going to be the same thing with AI.
 
 

00:27:23

 
Kristjan Byfield: I think there's going to be agencies that go, "Yeah, but you know, I asked for GBT something the other day and like most of it was on point, but it gave a couple of bit of bollocks." And it was like, "Oh, really?"
Mal McCallion: It's
Kristjan Byfield: Because no,
Mal McCallion: so true.
Kristjan Byfield: because
Mal McCallion: And
Kristjan Byfield: no agent's ever done that before.
Mal McCallion: yeah, and you see it all the way through everything. So,
Kristjan Byfield: And like,
Mal McCallion: so
Kristjan Byfield: "Oh, yeah. I mean, I did get a response straight away and I did get to book my viewing, but it couldn't answer me how long the lease was."
Mal McCallion: yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Uh I mean again uh that this can also be true with humans.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um I know many uh uh sales viewing that's been booked where the agent is unable to answer key answers like how long is left on the lease, what
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: the grand rent service charges, you
Mal McCallion: Cool.
Kristjan Byfield: know, whatever else. But also, you know, but so what's more important to the customer?
 
 

00:28:17

 
Kristjan Byfield: Getting getting an instant solution to their inquiry. Hi, I'd like to see this on Thursday at 3:00. Boom. That's booked in. Oh, by the way,
Mal McCallion: Nice.
Kristjan Byfield: can you tell me XY Z? Ah, a member of our team will be in touch before the viewing to relay that information. What's better? that or I want to see this property on Thursday. Uh, and on Thursday morning you get an email going, "Oh, oh, and I'd also like to know XY Z." And on Thursday morning, get an email going, "Hey, great. We can squeeze you in at 1:15 today. And by the way, here's the answer to your questions.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: What's the better experience?"
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: I think we can all agree that whilst the the the digital experience wasn't perfect, the primary objective was they wanted to view the property.
Mal McCallion: And it's it's to your point about this this people and and property kind of dichotomy almost is um what what what we spend all of our time talking about is is model properties is and getting the machines to do the machine job and getting the humans to do the human job.
 
 

00:29:22

 
Mal McCallion: So you got Frank as you say who's like you know can do some of this stuff that that that is great. So, so get Frank doing the human stuff that the machines can't do and get the machines doing the machine stuff. And one of the really great use cases is this voice, right? So, if you've got a machine that can basically answer the phone, can chat with somebody, can answer some questions, and then when it gets stuck, it will forward it onto somebody else. Um, and it does that consistently and 95% of the time is great. Um, as you say, if you actually get humans doing that instead where they're taking messages, put putting things through, trying to find people, wasting all that time is such a so expensive way of doing that process. And you might say, well, yeah, but 100% of the time that person, you know, will in the end get it right. It's like, but it's costing you an absolute fortune. So, I think that is true. And it's also true in autonomous cars, interestingly.
 
 

00:30:10

 
Mal McCallion: So our our acceptance of um road crashes in autonomous cars is is like we won't accept any. And yet
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: humans crash into humans all the time.
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. And we don't go humans can't be allowed to drive cars.
Mal McCallion: Exactly. Let's stop everybody. Right. Thank you over there. Right. That they are I don't know a 40-y old bloke. Let's stop all 40-y old BS from driving cars because they are bad at it. Um so yeah it's just it's just a really interesting as you say that that actually people have a far less tolerance lower tolerance
Kristjan Byfield: for Ian
Mal McCallion: of
Kristjan Byfield: Ian Preston. So, uh for those who don't know who Ian Preston is, uh former um owner MD of Preston Baker,
Mal McCallion: Yeah, great.
Kristjan Byfield: um and now uh building out Greenhouse OS, which is a kind of AIdriven uh agency CRM system. Um, but he did a really interesting post on LinkedIn a week or two ago.
 
 

00:31:00

 
Kristjan Byfield: And again, it was coming back to this thing of um, agents wanting stuff, but being so particular and needing it to be so perfect. And I in saying this, and there will definitely be suppliers listening to this who have pitched me products for bass and I've gone, "Yeah, but it doesn't do this, so we're not touching it." So hands up. I
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: know that I am also
Mal McCallion: who writes in? It's
Kristjan Byfield: I
Mal McCallion: Christian
Kristjan Byfield: am also guilty of this as well. Um I know that I have a rather challenging reputation within segments of the supplier market on the agency side of things. But um he did a really interesting post which was fundamentally around the premise of um streamlining the inquiries and viewings process. Um and you know the premise of the premise was uh loads of agents I speak to would love this system to be automated would love it to be seamless inquiry comes in gets validated gets cross matched gets matched into the diaries booked in bomb done it was that however when it comes to actually delivering that for agents there is then a myriad of ah yeah but it doesn't ask this question and it doesn't do that and it doesn't know that um Sandra actually doesn't like to do viewings at that
 
 

00:32:28

 
Mal McCallion: Wait.
Kristjan Byfield: time. That's
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: when she grabs lunch with her husband who works down the street and uh or we don't we don't want to go to that property three times over two days. We just, you know, we want it as a block viewing. Um and look no some of these nuances are valid and some of these nuances tech are getting and building into their system but again it is that it is ignoring that agent's current failings on managing inquiries and booking viewings.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, and I think if every single agent, hand on heart, knows that no agent gets that right all the time, no matter how good you are. Um, and a lot of agents, again coming back to our 50% stat, we know a lot of agents get it really wrong.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: So again, coming back to the example before, what is better? An instant solution that might need a little bit of tweaking. You might need, god forbid, your team might need to pick up the phone for one in five viewings and go, "Look guys, I know I know our system booked you in for this, but I'm really sorry. We're
 
 

00:33:38

 
Kristjan Byfield: going to need to move you XY Z."
Mal McCallion: Yeah, you were four that I
Kristjan Byfield: They
Mal McCallion: just
Kristjan Byfield: understand. Give them a legitimate reason as long as there's advanced warning. And and if the reality is they just simply can't view the property at that time, you know, but what is again what is worse from a customer perspective, those one in five getting a call the next day where often this will happen out of hours, right? So 60 I'm sure I'm right in saying it's about 60 65% of leads come in out of traditional office hours,
Mal McCallion: Yeah, I
Kristjan Byfield: evenings
Mal McCallion: think that's
Kristjan Byfield: and weekends uh when people are just, you know, browsing, aren't they? And they've got the time.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, so what is a worse or better customer experience? Having 80% of them getting the outcome that they wanted instantly
Mal McCallion: Yep.
Kristjan Byfield: and 20% of those thinking they have and having a call in the next day or two to go really sorry we need to move it or we need to cancel whatever.
 
 

00:34:37

 
Kristjan Byfield: or 100% of those people waiting till the following working day two three five seven days
Mal McCallion: Yeah. And
Kristjan Byfield: if
Mal McCallion: some of
Kristjan Byfield: ever
Mal McCallion: them. Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: get a response and to get booked in
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly that.
Kristjan Byfield: I think
Mal McCallion: And
Kristjan Byfield: we
Mal McCallion: link
Kristjan Byfield: all know the answer to that right so it's it's um and that's why it comes back to this whole thing of questioning people buy from people I absolutely look again anyone who knows uh what Ann and I have built at base we've built an agency with personality. So I'm not for one second saying that the future of agency is these autonomous faceless kind of digital automatons
Mal McCallion: No.
Kristjan Byfield: that just have a different label on the front. Um you're absolutely I think actually tech will make agency more personal than
Mal McCallion: Yes.
Kristjan Byfield: it's ever been
Mal McCallion: Yes. Absolutely.
Kristjan Byfield: because
Mal McCallion: We
Kristjan Byfield: what agents will do you won't spend time putting data into spreadsheets.
 
 

00:35:36

 
Kristjan Byfield: won't spend time asking someone when can they move? Do they need it furnished? Do they have a car? You know,
Mal McCallion: machines doing the machine stuff. Absolutely. So you can then get the humans to essentially
Kristjan Byfield: a chat
Mal McCallion: target everything.
Kristjan Byfield: and a laugh and some
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: banter and
Mal McCallion: said go, you know, find themselves down to coffee shops, go to, you know, coffee mornings, go to the golf club, you know, do things that are building relationships because
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: that is going to be the thing that machines cannot do. Uh, and that to me is why we have another phrase that um about um basically authenticity at scale. So,
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: what you're going to be able to get is by using AI, you're going to drop away all of the stuff that everybody else does, all of that, you know, repetitive nonsense. And then the authentic bit of you, the thing that looks up from its screen and goes out and talks to other humans, you're going to be able to do that at scout.
 
 

00:36:23

 
Mal McCallion: And that's brilliant. And that's what I think is coming down the track. And again, any agents listening out there, that's what you've got to try and get your your head towards is what is it that's unique about us? Why aren't we out there doing more of it? And what do I need to put in place behind me so that I can
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And and I think there's what's the what's the stat is it with tech? I think it's it's people overestimate what will happen in five years but
Mal McCallion: Yes.
Kristjan Byfield: underestimate what will happen in 10.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um I genuinely think the pace AI is moving now. I think this is going to be the first thing that blows that out the water. I think what happens in the next five years that that there are going to be seismic shifts beyond that you know the I forget the technical word. What's the what's the the
Mal McCallion: the
Kristjan Byfield: curve?
 
 

00:37:13

 
Mal McCallion: exponential exponential curve.
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah the exponential curve of of innovation and evolution. I mean, look, you can now, you know, you can, is it um I think it's DJI who are bringing out a supercomput you can have on your desk for $5,000. Like
Mal McCallion: Uh
Kristjan Byfield: a bonafideed
Mal McCallion: yes. Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: bonafide
Mal McCallion: And that's
Kristjan Byfield: supercomput
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: for five grand, which is look, you and I remember 15, 20. Well, you can spend that on a Mac now
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: if you really want to. Um, but you know, I remember the the desktop max
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: 15 years ago if you wanted to buy the ones with decent amount of memory, which would be laughable memory now.
Mal McCallion: Exactly. Right.
Kristjan Byfield: You're dropping four or five grand on those.
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Your
Kristjan Byfield: And
Mal McCallion: phone
Kristjan Byfield: we're
Mal McCallion: has got
Kristjan Byfield: now
Mal McCallion: more
Kristjan Byfield: talking
Mal McCallion: memory.
Kristjan Byfield: about, you know, a computer that can run your entire business and
 
 

00:37:55

 
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: that is yours sat on your desk. And it's not much bigger than a VHS cassette.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: This
Mal McCallion: and and and
Kristjan Byfield: is
Mal McCallion: that's now like you say you know in two years time it's going to be on our phones or in our glasses or you know they are they are making so much technology technological advances
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: in terms of processing and memory and all that sort of stuff that it's just getting smaller and smaller. So yeah, pretty soon you're going to be able to run your business like say off um off your phone um and and it's just going to be um it's going to enable people to go and do people stuff and that to me is just the just an absolute you know I can't wait. It's gonna be so exciting.
Kristjan Byfield: So, uh, let's let's let's dive into some um a little bit of kind of actionable stuff. Okay. So, um I think one thing that I I I kind of stay true to uh on this point is I think look there's there's lots of industry specific products out there.
 
 

00:38:52

 
Kristjan Byfield: Um and a lot of us as suppliers are or should be um looking to see how we leverage the power of AI within our products. So I think um I don't think agents necessarily need to go and rethink the wheel just yet in that I don't think you need to kind of try and figure out how you're going to personally map AI into every nook and cranny of your business just yet.
Mal McCallion: Great.
Kristjan Byfield: you know, let your specialist providers have those conversations. Absolutely. reach out to your providers and understand what their attitude and approach to AI is because
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: I think if you're if you're working in a marketplace with three, four, five suppliers and the one that you're working with now is all right, but when you have a chat with them and you ask what their AI plans are, if they don't have a very clear strategy of what a couple of ways they're going to leverage AI to a substantial benefit for you in the next 12 months, you you need to be thinking about who that partner
 
 

00:39:54

 
Mal McCallion: a huge signal. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, one of the big um big CRM CRM systems who shall remain nameless. Um yeah, had a recent, you know, recent relaunch of like, you know, everything they're going to be doing, you know, this year and and it didn't mention AI. And honestly, you know, when you just kind of I I read through it and then read through it again and watch all the videos and and literally there was not a mention of AI. And I think that, you know, the the pace of this has has caught some of these businesses off guard. Um, it has forced them to, you know, to to to kind of almost ignore it a little bit because their their plans are very specifically to do this thing and they've got this update and blah blah blah. And that road map is it's tear it up, you know. It's it's it's
Kristjan Byfield: because we know I mean younger smaller businesses are more agile and that's true pretty much in every marketplace but I think in tech as well I think
 
 

00:40:39

 
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: I think the the fear for your titans for your your repits your MRIs your altos uh your CFPs um you know and everything else I think the the the challenges you've got for legacy is it's it's such a break from what they are as a legacy product that you know I mean Repit obviously did did the did the the move of doing Repit Foundation's app store
Mal McCallion: again.
Kristjan Byfield: a few years ago which you know was a movement in the right direction but
Mal McCallion: Oh,
Kristjan Byfield: you know it took a lot of uming and erring and talking and nudging and and everything else to get to to where that was.
Mal McCallion: goodness.
Kristjan Byfield: Um and I think you know AI is yeah exponentially more challenging but I think you know most of the young businesses that I talk to and the new businesses that are launching fresh off the back of this when we talked about green greenhouse OS um I saw a wicked property management solution that's being built uh the other day called Ask Vinnie
Mal McCallion: Oh yeah.
 
 

00:41:41

 
Kristjan Byfield: super cool
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: um uh I've kind of uh consulted is way too formal but we've had uh chats over the last few months about what the refinement looks like. And yeah, we had a demo. We we're very seriously looking at bringing that into our property management operation at base.
Mal McCallion: Wow.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, and they're and they're already thinking about what that expanded ecosystem looks like. So, they've not only got their AI solutions, um, but they're already looking at partners. So, they've got a property maintenance solution, which is kind of, if you, uh, I quite often like it when people go, "Oh, if AI and Canva had a baby." Um it's kind of like if AI and fix flow had a baby.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Uh it is that you know it is taking that or AI and property file. It's taking that and just applying the next level to it. They've factored in an element quite a decent element of customization to deliver the flows that you want. And they've
 
 

00:42:36

 
Mal McCallion: What?
Kristjan Byfield: already done a a partnership with weix now which if anyone who's not familiar with weix now brilliant business from Ezan. And it just um it leverages tech and people in a great way to solve maintenance.
Mal McCallion: Love.
Kristjan Byfield: He's got a team of experienced contractors um and the first thing that happens when you sign up to their service if your tenants's got an issue, they go on a phone call or a FaceTime call with a plumber, electrician, gas engineer, whatever, who will on the phone go through and try and troubleshoot that issue with them
Mal McCallion: Amazing.
Kristjan Byfield: because why wouldn't you? Oh, try this. Check that. Boom. Boom.
Mal McCallion: Amazing.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, and then if that doesn't work, you know, I believe I'm right in saying you can either use their contractors to go out or they will generate a detailed works order um for you to then pass on to your your contractor of
Mal McCallion: Beautiful.
Kristjan Byfield: choice. So, you've had an an expert engineer go right, it's this maker model.
 
 

00:43:29

 
Kristjan Byfield: I think it's the heat diverter valve on the boiler or whatever it is. You know, they've done an initial diagnosis. It's fault F4 or whatever it is. Boom. Done. And off you go. And so you can already embed that in. It's already embedding prompts for video uh inspections for tenants to do video inspections themselves. Super cool.
Mal McCallion: Love it. And that's the kind of business I love that that whole kind of rebuilding something that is a standard problem and has been around for you as long as tenencies have been around. Um and and actually just rethinking it and finessing it and actually finding really um just proper advanced ways of using technology
Kristjan Byfield: Oh,
Mal McCallion: that's out there.
Kristjan Byfield: talking about accessibility of cost, right? So, so they have built out two modules. Their their goal is to build out four key modules initially. They've done two inquiry management and property maintenance
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: in teny duration property maintenance. Those are the two that are live.
 
 

00:44:25

 
Kristjan Byfield: I forget what the other two they're working on are at the moment.
Mal McCallion: those are the chunky ones, right? Or
Kristjan Byfield: But
Mal McCallion: the
Kristjan Byfield: for
Mal McCallion: new
Kristjan Byfield: each of
Mal McCallion: ones.
Kristjan Byfield: those,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: their rate, and I believe I'm going to say this, is 1 125 per month per property on your portfolio. So if you manage 200 tenencies, which is a very common portfolio size for smaller letting agents around the country,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: you know, you're looking at what 250 quid a month if you adopt. We're just we're probably not going to adopt the inquiries one straight away. I think we're going to do the maintenance. So, um yeah, I mean we look after about 300 properties. So, we're looking at a cost of what £3605
Mal McCallion: Wow.
Kristjan Byfield: a month
Mal McCallion: Wow.
Kristjan Byfield: to pretty much eliminate all of that first line
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: property maintenance issues. And you can put in those triggers.
 
 

00:45:22

 
Kristjan Byfield: So when when you when you do get those sticky situations, the ones that a a workflow can't resolve, you've still got the ability to escalate that to your human property managers.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: But guess what? They're now not spending a third of their day
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: dealing with this standardized stuff. And like I said, you plug in we fix. Now obviously that does bring an extra cost to that service but you plug that in and for I don't know5600 pound a month
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: you have now automated and streamlined 90% of your maintenance responses.
Mal McCallion: Yeah. And and how many people or humans were doing that job before, you know, and what was that costing? And it's just
Kristjan Byfield: And again
Mal McCallion: it's
Kristjan Byfield: it comes back to that thing of well not just how many were doing it but how many were doing it well. And
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: as we move into the renters's rights bills, we move into periodic tenencies where
Mal McCallion: What?
 
 

00:46:13

 
Kristjan Byfield: tenants will no longer be obligated to put up with s*** service because they're tied into a one, two, three year teny agreement and the agent knows or the landlord knows that ultimately as long as the as long as the place ain't a death threat and you're not in breach of any major regs, they're probably not going to go anywhere. Tenants won't put up with this s*** anymore.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: you know, if if stuff doesn't get fixed, if they don't get a timely response, if they don't get listened to, they'll just go, you know what, subless
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: and because there won't be the pressure, they'll be under no obligation to work to a very specific time frame. Um, they, you know, you won't know until it's too late. They'll they'll look to find their ideal next home. And again, referring back to what we've talked about later, off the back of that experience, they might go, "Do you know what? I've had such a bad experience with this agent. Do not bring me any instructions by this agent,
 
 

00:47:11

 
Mal McCallion: Mhm. Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: and I now want an agent with an exemplary reputation
Mal McCallion: And
Kristjan Byfield: for
Mal McCallion: by
Kristjan Byfield: it.
Mal McCallion: the way, also, yeah, can you just log a complaint? Can you also report it to the appropriate authorities? And at the same time, can you drop a trust pilot review that says how terrible they are? Uh, and it will just and that's it. And it will just happen.
Kristjan Byfield: And tenants will just turn around. They'll go, "Do you know what? I'm I'm not putting up with this. I'm out of here." Oh, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, dude. Not wait. I've already signed a teny agreement. You know, I'm moving there in three weeks. Here's my one month's notice,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: you know, and and that will be it. And and I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't think from now there is a flip side to that.
 
 

00:47:53

 
Kristjan Byfield: um you know, one of the knock-on effects, and again, you could argue this shouldn't really be a tenants's responsibility anyway, but um when landlords are confronted with issues that are outside of their control, a block management issue,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: uh you know, a freeholder that isn't acting, I mean, my god, we had we had a nightmare with Tower Hamlets who were a freeholder on a flat of ours that had a roof leak. It took us two years.
Mal McCallion: Whoa.
Kristjan Byfield: two years and I
Mal McCallion: What?
Kristjan Byfield: think 275 emails
Mal McCallion: Jesus.
Kristjan Byfield: to get to our hamlets to fix it. I mean, we we we took them to town u and we got them to cover the entire loss of rent because we had to let the tenants move out and everything else.
Mal McCallion: Oh god.
Kristjan Byfield: My god, the amount of money that council must be hemorrhaging.
Mal McCallion: Yeah, cuz that's not going to be the only one, is it?
Kristjan Byfield: And again, you know, Awab's law, decent home standard, HHSRS, you know, there is more and more and more coming in. And what has always protected bad agents, bad landlords, bad social housing providers, bad freeholders has been the complex nature of accessing detailed and actionable information.
 
 

00:49:05

 
Kristjan Byfield: Right? Again, it's that thing of you go to Google now. H my landlord's not fixing my boiler. What do I do? And you will get probably first page you'll probably have 20 FAQ tips on agent websites that they've done for backlinking. Like here's what you do if your voice doesn't work. Um
Mal McCallion: Yes.
Kristjan Byfield: but none of it is really actionable. None of it really tells you what the legislation sits under that and how you enforce that. I think that's always been the crux of the matter. But AI will transform that because
Mal McCallion: Hello.
Kristjan Byfield: like you said, tenants will go, they will just tell AI what they've been going through.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: You know, I haven't had hot water for a week and I've called my landlord five times. What the f*** do I do? Uh, and guess what? AI will be like, like you said, here are your rights. Here are the obligations. Here's an email that we can send to the landlord and your local council instantly.
 
 

00:50:02

 
Kristjan Byfield: Would
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: you like us to send this? We've been on your letting agent website and we found their official complaints procedure. Um, would you like us to start the first step of that process?
Mal McCallion: Yeah, exactly that. It's going to be served up, but it's going to be so straightforward.
Kristjan Byfield: Before tenants weren't going to take that time to educate themselves. They weren't going to take the time and effort to go through those steps.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: talked about they've got the best assistant in the world ever who's going, "Oh, by the way, you know
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: that first step of the official complaint, the agent hasn't come back in seven days. Would you like me to send the next step?
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Exactly that. And and this is to your point about the practicalities of this is you know actually what can you go out and do today. I think you really really have got to to to understand how chat GPT is working now.
 
 

00:50:45

 
Mal McCallion: So that that deep research thing click on that because that is your window into the future because it is so detailed and so good. There's another one called Manis Mus Manis AI. Uh and that's really worth a little look as well because that's even more um agentic as you say. So agentic AI being one one you give a a purpose to essentially. So you give it a purpose, it will go and it will you don't tell it how to go and do it. It will go off and do it and it will be amazing. And essentially it it runs little independent AIs itself. And I think you know as we kind of go through one of the core jobs that that we as humans are going to have is is this orchestration of these AIs. So you're going to have AIs doing little things within your within your business and you're going to have somebody who who needs to know what they're all doing. Um, and I think there's there's the quote from from Sam Alman, who's the the chief exec of of OpenAI who built Chat GBT, and he said, you know, by by this time next year, we're all going to have at least one AI working alongside us.
 
 

00:51:39

 
Mal McCallion: And I think that's true. You know, people are going to find that um having this this extra assistant that knows everything that is intelligence on tap on demand. That's going to be a fundamental requirement for really good businesses going forwards. And I think everybody out there should really pay attention to that and and start practicing now.
Kristjan Byfield: Well, so you know, we we touched this earlier and it's a good time to come back to this now. So I've talked about you know you've got um suppliers within the space who are now properly looking at AI. So I think last year 18 months ago you had some companies who and full credit to them for for jumping on the innovation quickly. You had a lot of agents jump on the quick wins the property descriptions the you know whatever it was you know the the really quick easy plug it in simple prompt.
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: Um, Bosch, off you go.
Mal McCallion: thanks for staying. Yeah, absolutely. Over
Kristjan Byfield: It literally just touched the surface.
 
 

00:52:36

 
Kristjan Byfield: But I think, you know, we've been we've been looking at AI and depository for the last 18 months, two years, playing around with how we leverage it, what those prompts look like? Did we go open source? Did we double down and build our own own LLMs, which actually, you know, 18 months ago seemed like an absolute crazy idea. I read an article yesterday that was actually yeah it's actually not that crazy anymore.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: He said again the cost and the parameters I've plummeted.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: time.
Mal McCallion: and and the security of having your own one is is really really important. I would suggest particularly with all the the data that you're you're working with with tenants or landlords. Um yes, being able to know that that is not leaking out into a wider ecosystem is really really important.
Kristjan Byfield: But look, we we looked at it and we looked at how do we leverage it, you know, how do we leverage it? and and initially we came up with the quick wins, the easy wins, but we were like, it's it's AI is worth so much more than that.
 
 

00:53:37

 
Kristjan Byfield: It's capable of so much more than that. And so, um, we wanted to look at how we address coming back to what we've talked about really, how we address the disparity of performance within an agency itself or within our industry sector, right? how you differentiate between the good performers and the bad performers, whether they're in your business, whether you're a big enough business to have a big enough team where you've got that um or you know, like we said, as an industry, the top and bottom performers within our industry and how you tackle that. And so we've got a lot of data and reporting. Um, uh, I quite like playing around with a platform called Julius AI, which is, uh, kind of research data AI engine. Um, which does some quite cool things. Um, and we basically chucked it a ton of our data reports. We
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: pulled out, uh, I think three years user data across. We've got like six or seven reports. Um, and we, you know, rather than figure it out ourselves, I'm missing a trick here.
 
 

00:54:48

 
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: And we chucked that all in and we said, you know, where where are you or is AI able to create the greatest transformational shift by either enabling the top performers to handle the work capacity of the entire operation or how we how we can turn the bot bottom 50% how we can transform their performance from the bottom 50% to replicate the top 20. Um and so it identified three areas uh within within depository and what we do and that is the way in which deduction or liability proposals are organized and presented. um the way in which they are negotiated in terms of speed of response um what's the word not empathy but acknowledgment of attendance points um and
Mal McCallion: Amazing.
Kristjan Byfield: uh a fulfillment of their requests um and then actionable data um and so that's you know that's very much what we're building so you know we looked at that and we played around with some very quickly
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: and then we've spent the last I don't know 9 12 months refining what that looked like um thinking about where we think AI is going.
 
 

00:56:25

 
Kristjan Byfield: So we have very much built this thinking about agentic AI. So right now it's initially going to be an assistant. it's going to be a tool that assists people um and that will remain the same but the scope of the assistance it gives can be scaled up in
Mal McCallion: It's
Kristjan Byfield: time.
Mal McCallion: going to Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: So uh our first tool which we're building now which we're hopefully going to release next month uh at some point um is negotiations. So the biggest disparity that we found in our platform from a data perspective is how users negotiate with tenants when they when they when their um original proposals are not accepted.
Mal McCallion: Okay.
Kristjan Byfield: And what we see there is the top sort of 10 15% of performers are in the 90 or even 95% performance bracket. So we track key data in our platform which is uh proposed deductions versus the final agreed amount
Mal McCallion: Let's try
Kristjan Byfield: and
Mal McCallion: again.
Kristjan Byfield: we have that numerically and also as a percentage. Uh and we think that's really important for two reasons.
 
 

00:57:30

 
Kristjan Byfield: Uh because that percentage actually represents two things. It represents that fundamentally if you're achieving 90 plus% that underpins two core things with your business. that theoretically your deductions are legitimate and fair and alongside that that you are competent negotiators and they are two important things to convey to your landlord clients.
Mal McCallion: Yes.
Kristjan Byfield: You know we are very good at what we do. We have very good processes but we follow the law and for that reason we will on average achieve you 90 plus% of any deduction any deposit proposal
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: that
Mal McCallion: that's
Kristjan Byfield: we
Mal McCallion: good.
Kristjan Byfield: submit. Um so we know the top 10 15% of users are in that 90 percentile. We have got a substantial number of individual users actually who are on the 100% mark on multiple cases. Phenomenal. Um but we also know what bad looks like.
Mal McCallion: Mhm. Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: know what 50% of those user stats look like and it's not pretty. Um, but what AI told us is fundamentally those results they believe are due to a handful of key factors.
 
 

00:58:48

 
Kristjan Byfield: How the deductions are proposed and presented and the language used and the evidence accompanying it. um when a tenant counters a proposal, how that is react and responded to, time of response, time it takes to respond, content of that response, and the and the emotive tone of that response. What we've seen of performers is that unsurprisingly, the responses are slow.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um
Mal McCallion: Defensive.
Kristjan Byfield: they they are defensive or just downright ignorant. They totally they don't they don't reference a single point that the tenant said. You know, see some users just put see previous see previous response.
Mal McCallion: Guaranteed to wind people
Kristjan Byfield: I
Mal McCallion: up.
Kristjan Byfield: mean, you might as well just put that emoji
Mal McCallion: Exactly
Kristjan Byfield: on.
Mal McCallion: right.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, and it ignores a request. So, the tenant might go, "Uh, I'm not necessarily against this, but I'd really like to see an invoice or a quote that backs up the fact that this is going to cost that amount of money and one doesn't get provided."
 
 

00:59:54

 
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: And so, what we gearing AI to do, uh, we are gearing it to acknowledge counter, but acknowledge all the key points that the tenant makes in a counter offer.
Mal McCallion: Nice.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, if in a counter offer the tenant says, "I would like more evidence. I would like to see an invoice." If a user uses our tool to respond, so we will have a generate response tool. Um, if they try to send that response and there is no new piece of evidence attached, it will flag it to say the tenant has asked for more evidence. Now,
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: it's
Mal McCallion: brilliant.
Kristjan Byfield: not going to be perfect because at the moment, we can't read that evidence. So, they've asked for a contractor invoice. They might have uploaded a photo, something completely different.
Mal McCallion: Still that's
Kristjan Byfield: At the moment, we won't know.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: But again, two, three, five years down the line, AI will be able to go, "Ah, I can see you've added a photo of this, but the tenants actually asked for an invoice or a quote. Do
 
 

01:00:52

 
Kristjan Byfield: you have one?"
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Kristjan Byfield: But it's going to flag it saying, "Look, the tenant has asked for this. You've not provided it." Uh, and those tools will hopefully enable an agent to do that quicker. And what we're building as a substructure to that is the preparation for agentic AI. So when the technology and our customers get comfortable enough with the performance of that tool,
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: we are we are building into that the parameters to say do you know what I'm happy for AI to do the first three rounds of negotiation on my behalf.
Mal McCallion: And I think that that's genius because what what you're doing is you are leading people through this this new world because what's happening right now as you say is not going to be what's happening in two years time, three years time, but the sooner you know and understand what's happening now, the sooner you're going to be able to understand what's happening in two three years time. So that that that jump to Agentic and and you know it being able to do everything autonomously.
 
 

01:01:50

 
Mal McCallion: Um you need to be walking alongside it to know how that is building and how that is developing. Um and also as as you've done with depository and and base is to think about right what does that mean for me as a business if again a intelligence is going to be everywhere is going to be on demand on tap um and if then that intelligence is going to be able to go and do things for me and I'm just going to send it um give it tasks then which are the tasks I'm going to start to test that with you know
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: what are the low lowhanging fruit but also lowrisk tasks that I can start to to go and investigate and start to kind of play around just so that I can see what this AI can do in action.
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah. And so, you know, that's where we're starting. So, we're going to do negotiations first. Um, and in that we're also again preparing for Agentic. We're remapping slightly. Uh, we currently uh get most landlords are required to sign off on proposals within our platform.
 
 

01:02:46

 
Kristjan Byfield: Um, part of this new release, we're also going to seek uh a negotiation framework from the landlord. So, as part of the signoff process, when we do this release, rather than saying, "Yeah, I'm happy with the 600 quids worth of deductions you've proposed," they will also be asked, uh, if we're unable to get the whole amount for you, what is the minimum you're happy for us to negotiate for on your behalf?
Mal McCallion: Yeah,
Kristjan Byfield: and
Mal McCallion: amazing.
Kristjan Byfield: that landlord will be prompted to give a guide to that whether it's a custom amount or a percentage but they will set that parameter uh to go look get me 400 quid and I'm happy get me 75% and I'm happy and so again we're setting that framework again to gear but that's going to benefit agents straight away so agents straight away will get that information now great landlord you know wants us to get 600 but as long as we get him 400 quid we're good to go. I can just crack on now.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, and again, that's all worked into the prompts.
 
 

01:03:46

 
Kristjan Byfield: So, you know, we'll know what that negotiation consent is. Uh, if an agent is proposing an amount where it doesn't meet that parameter, it will alert them. It doesn't block them,
Mal McCallion: Okay.
Kristjan Byfield: but it
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: will alert them to say just to be aware you're not meeting your landlord's minimum that we have required in the system. And again, that data is there for the future.
Mal McCallion: To
Kristjan Byfield: So,
Mal McCallion: show to show who's good who's good at actually getting close to it, who who rolls over too easy. uh that sort of stuff. Yeah. Really good. Really interesting.
Kristjan Byfield: So, it's really fascinating. And then, you know, straight off of we're going to do the proposals bit. So, we're going to we've got our fantastic inventory partner integrations. We've already got a kind of uh mer delet delete and merge functionality to curate those, but that will now become AI. Um think initially we're still going to need to keep that human delete function.
 
 

01:04:37

 
Kristjan Byfield: the human is still going to need to go these 15 things in the inventory aren't relevant because they're wear and tear and they're stuff we knew about whatever. Um AI I don't think it's quite ready for that yet because it just doesn't have the insight with CRM and everything else but
Mal McCallion: And
Kristjan Byfield: in
Mal McCallion: the risk
Kristjan Byfield: time.
Mal McCallion: there is huge, but the risk of of basically just winding everybody up on that is is too big to
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah.
Mal McCallion: automate right now.
Kristjan Byfield: But
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: you'll still now have that human filter. And then
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: the human will just go, "Right, 60 things are coming in from the checkout report. These 15 are garbage. AI do your stuff." And AI will go, "Cool, these eight things are cleaning."
Mal McCallion: Yep.
Kristjan Byfield: It will compile them. We already do that, but at the moment it is literally just constated text. It is just we're all about facts and evidence, but
 
 

01:05:17

 
Mal McCallion: Mhm.
Kristjan Byfield: it it's very facts and evidencey at the moment. Um, and so this is just going to bizarrely add that little human layer to that.
Mal McCallion: Yeah. Yeah. And that and and this is what I love is is it's actually making us rethink processes and inject human humans into bits that they didn't have time to do before because they were too busy doing the other grunty bits. So yeah, absolutely. And again going back to your sort of your your your balance between people property is people, you know, this is just an enabler. It's an enabler for us to go and be more human and
Kristjan Byfield: Yeah,
Mal McCallion: do more good stuff that basically everybody wants anyway. So no, it's super exciting.
Kristjan Byfield: dude. I think that's a good point for us to wrap it up there. I know you have got another event you're going to be uh running shortly. We're about to jump on another webinar that you're running um
Mal McCallion: That's
Kristjan Byfield: all about weirdly how AI can be used by estate agents to drive I think it's growth, isn't it?
 
 

01:06:15

 
Kristjan Byfield: Uh,
Mal McCallion: it is indeed. Absolutely. Yes. So, so ju just Yeah. And and again, we do this every month. It's all part of our AI literacy thing. It's free and yeah, our focus is on how can you use this stuff practically to Yeah. Win more business, cost, productivity, all that.
Kristjan Byfield: if you're listening to this, if you're not familiar with Mal already, get on to Model Prop, get on the website, get registered. Uh, Mal, if you also saw, he did a press release the other day. He's about to do a 60day UK road tour. um
Mal McCallion: Deep
Kristjan Byfield: helping
Mal McCallion: breaths.
Kristjan Byfield: all of you understand how AI is going to change things uh with particular focus on the portals. Right. So I am going to find out more about this at some ungodly hour tomorrow morning. Mal uh Mal Mal owes me big time because he somehow conids me to turn up to something at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning which anyone
 
 

01:07:03

 
Mal McCallion: That's right.
Kristjan Byfield: listen to is probably just burst out in laughter thought bit. I apologize anyone
Mal McCallion: Thanks.
Kristjan Byfield: who's in the room and how grumpy I might be. Um, but no, I'm really excited to hear more about it, mate. And, um, yeah, look, uh, if you're listening to this, just get over the fear, start playing around, uh, start talking to people, whether you want to talk to agents, uh, like myself, there's a myriad of us out there who will happily shoot the breeze, uh, whether you want to talk to experts like Mal, uh, whether you want, uh, you know, an infill kind of help from the likes of people at Puffle, uh, or whatever it is. Um, but the one thing you mustn't do is shy away from this.
Mal McCallion: Yeah.
Kristjan Byfield: Um, because it's gonna move fast. So, you need to get on the train because otherwise it's not just going to be out the station. It's going to be in a different country by the time you're trying to get on board.
Mal McCallion: Okay.
Kristjan Byfield: So, always a pleasure, mate.
Mal McCallion: Our
Kristjan Byfield: Uh,
Mal McCallion: flags, really good SketchUp. Thanks.
Kristjan Byfield: coffee tomorrow morning better be good, but otherwise, can't wait to hear what you've got to tell tomorrow morning, mate. Thanks for your time, buddy.
Mal McCallion: Love
Kristjan Byfield: All right.
Mal McCallion: you, everybody. Take care. Bye.
 
 

Transcription ended after 01:08:16

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