Change agents: Redfin

Editors’ note: This post features Clay Bavor, Co-founder of Sierra and Ariel Dos Santos, SVP of Product & Design at Redfin.

Redfin launches first of its kind AI conversational search experience.

The best real estate agents don’t start by asking you to check off a bunch of boxes. They start by asking about what you want from your dream home. A backyard for your dog. A walkable neighborhood. A shorter commute. Proximity to parks and coffee shops. And after a bit of back and forth, they show you homes that actually fit your life, and budget.

That’s how home search should work online. But most websites and apps offer a one-size-fits all experience that forces you to think like a database administrator: selecting from dropdown menus, setting exact square footage ranges, and drawing hard-and-fast boundaries on maps. Until now.

Today, Redfin is introducing a first of its kind conversational home search, where the conversation is the interface. There are no filters to configure, no parameters to refine. Just your dream, in your own words, turned into homes that are worth your time.

The conversation is the interface

Something remarkable happens when you remove the friction of filters and forms.

Users both expand their horizons and become far more specific about what matters to them. They say things like, "I like this, but the kitchen should be more modern," or "I care less about the exact number of bedrooms and more about the overall amount of space.” And the results speak for themselves: conversational search users view nearly twice as many listings, and are 47% more likely to request a tour.

Building this has been a technical challenge: how do you build an AI agent that can reliably scan millions of listings while understanding fuzzy concepts such as "cottage-like feel" or "good natural light"? How do you help it learn when to push back — like explaining that a $300k home in a dream neighborhood with your long list of criteria doesn't exist — while staying helpful, not bossy or robotic? The answer: learning from real conversations with real homebuyers as quickly as possible. Every day, we see the AI agent get better at understanding the gray area between what people say, what they mean, and what’s realistic given their budget.

Redfin is leading the industry in developing the first truly conversational interface on a major real estate site. And this is just the beginning. We imagine a world where every touchpoint in the homebuying journey feels more like conversation, not navigating software. Because when AI can understand context, ask questions, and explain tradeoffs, it becomes a true partner.

The promise of the Internet was always personalization. Yet 40 years later, we’re still all using generic apps and websites with static pages and drop down menus to navigate. AI is changing all that. It’s so exciting to see what’s possible when the conversation becomes the interface — one that learns you, not the other way around. Home search instantly becomes much more personal, much faster and much more useful.