Proptech AISource: Inman
The Agency builds in-house AI — steering wheel for 4,000+ agents, not another dashboard
Original headline: “‘A steering wheel, not a dashboard’: Inside The Agency’s in-house AI build (EXCLUSIVE)” — Inman, Oct 23, 2026
In an October 23 exclusive, Inman reports that luxury brokerage The Agency is building a proprietary AI platform that runs open-source LLMs on infrastructure it controls alongside commercial models from OpenAI and Anthropic, eventually for its more than 4,000 agents worldwide; EVP of Digital Strategy Zane Burnett said the product has no name yet and he is reluctant to pick one. The system pulls MLS and market data, transaction management, brokerage financials, listing syndication, marketing and internal communications into a data lake agents and leadership can query in plain language against live Agency data; CEO Mauricio Umansky said the firm refuses to “rent our future” and is building its own platform. Burnett said it is in alpha with the internal team, with a leadership beta (including Umansky) in about a month, a formal unveil at the Miami leadership summit in November, all leadership access in Q1 2027 and agents later in 2027; commercial models handle market analysis and forecasting while sensitive client, transaction and financial data stay on self-hosted models (citing IPO uncertainty for OpenAI/Anthropic), and the firm still uses Rechat with a goal that agents work through tools without logging into each — a steering wheel versus a dashboard. Inman notes competitive context including Compass’s Home Platform, Real’s Leo Pro and eXp’s MCP First.
Our take (opinion & analysis, not reporting)
For US agents at large brokerages: ask whether your firm is building a similar hybrid (self-hosted for client/transaction data, commercial for market analysis) or renting a vendor stack — The Agency’s timeline puts leadership first in Q1 2027 and agents later, so do not assume every brand will ship agent access this year. If you already live in Rechat, Follow Up Boss or another CRM, ask how any in-house AI would sit on top without forcing another login. Luxury and indie brokers: treat Umansky’s “don’t rent our future” line as a build-vs-buy prompt, not a product you can buy tomorrow — confirm data-governance rules before pasting client files into a generic LLM.
Online discussion: no notable public discussion found yet (checked Oct 24, 2026).