Does ChatGPT Recommend Real Estate Agents in Australia?
A new wave of AI-powered search engines is changing how consumers find services. The way agencies acquire clients is changing — adapt or risk being left behind.
Times have changed. A seller in Bulleen doesn’t open Google anymore. She opens ChatGPT and types something like “who are the best agents to sell my house near me?” She doesn’t get ten blue links. She gets two or three names, delivered with total confidence, in one answer.
If your agency wasn’t one of those names, you weren’t in the running.
There’s no point asking whether AI will eventually start doing this. It’s already doing it — the only question is whether you’re on the list.
Research from March 2026 ran 162 real buyer-style queries through ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini across Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Every single query came back with named agencies. No hedging, no “I can’t help with that” — the engines are recommending, confidently, by name, right now. And the people asking the questions? They’re trusting and believing AI and what they’re being told at record levels.
Three Engines, Three Different Lists
To make life more difficult, research shows the three engines barely agree with each other. Being strong on ChatGPT tells you nothing about what Perplexity or Gemini will say about you. Most agencies visible at all are visible on exactly one engine, invisible on the other two.
Franchise brands haven’t fared any better. Decades of signage and portal spend haven’t bought them a seat at the table here — not one franchise made every engine’s list. Something else is deciding this, and it isn’t brand size.
Different Engines, Different Rules
Many people are rightly skeptical and thinking this looks just like SEO. It isn’t, and treating it like SEO is the mistake. Each engine reads a different primary source:
- ChatGPT leans on Google Business Profile and Maps — reviews, categories, service areas.
- Perplexity favours independent review platforms and directories — proof that comes from someone other than you.
- Gemini pulls from the widest spread of the three, which makes it the hardest to game and the hardest to fully map.
A thin Google Business Profile can make you invisible to ChatGPT specifically, even with a gorgeous website. No independent mentions anywhere can shut the door on Gemini and Perplexity, even with five-star Google reviews. You’re not optimising one front door. You’re optimising three, and each wants slightly different proof of who you are.
Are Buyers and Sellers Already Doing This?
Yes! It’s not just 7-day holiday itineraries to Japan that people are relying on AI for. Sixty-seven per cent of buyers now use AI tools as their primary research method before ever contacting an agent (NAR, 2025).
Property is one of the biggest financial decisions most people make in their life — exactly the kind of decision where someone quietly asks ChatGPT for a shortlist before they pick up a phone. And even if they don’t use it as their primary research, they’ll certainly likely to double check with AI…just in case. If you’re not on that shortlist, the agency that is gets the call instead — and you’ll never know you were even in the running.
The Good News (Especially If You’re Not a Franchise)
None of this is dominated by budget or brand size — genuinely good news if you’re not a national franchise. It rewards the same fundamentals that have always mattered in real estate: real local reputation, credible proof from someone other than you, and a clear answer to what you actually specialise in. The machines are just reading those signals differently to how a human seller would — and differently again depending on which one they’ve opened.
Which also means it’s fixable. Knowing exactly where you stand — which engines recommend you, which ignore you, and why — is the starting point. Everything after that is concrete: your Google Business Profile, your review volume, where you’re listed beyond your own website, how clearly you’ve named your specialisation.
What does ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini think of your agency?
Want to know where you stand? You can run a free AI Visibility Audit and see exactly where your agency sits across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini right now — or give Sandy a call and we’ll walk through it together.
The first step is knowing. Everything else moves from there.