Zillow’s A.I.

Real estate firm Zillow has received a lot of media attention recently due to its hegemonic position in the industry. They spent a large portion of 2021 acquiring so many homes that they had to put a stop to it for a few of months. They had had a severe technological setback that was the result of some overconfidence and perhaps some ignorance as well.

The majority of people were unaware that Zillow actually purchased and sold homes; they assumed it was merely a platform for real estate agents to display properties. In actuality, the company was in the business of flipping houses, and to help them with this, they had created some AI technology. They had such a high level of confidence that they were allowing the AI to make cash offers on houses. That proved to be a poor decision.

By November, the firm had a backlog of 7,000 homes valued approximately $2.8 billion that needed to be sold. Due to its reckless spending, they were forced to cease home purchases and shut down its AI system, demonstrating unequivocally that you cannot allow a website to invest in real estate across a whole nation.