The technology that once only valued homes now profiles the people looking at them. Here is what an agent can work out about you before you speak, and the review testing where the line sits.
Walk into an open home, scan the QR code, type in your name and phone number, and you have already told the selling agent more than you think. By the time you are standing in the kitchen, software may have scored how likely you are to buy, how soon, and roughly what you can afford.
From pricing homes to ranking buyers
For years the headline use of artificial intelligence in property was pricing. Automated valuation models, the algorithms that estimate what a home is worth from past sales and property data, decided the number on the screen. The newer shift is quieter and more personal. The same industry is now using AI to rank the buyers, not just the buildings.
Predictive platforms are marketed on their ability to pull signals from several places at once: how you browse listing portals like realestate.com.au and Domain, whether you open and click the agency's emails, and public indicators that you are getting your finances ready, such as applying for a mortgage pre-approval. Vendors say those signals combine into a single lead score that tells an agent where to spend their next hour. A buyer the system rates as ready and motivated gets the call back first.
The tools agents are using
Some of this runs on data products sold to agencies. Cotality, the data firm formerly known as CoreLogic, sells a Propensity to List model that flags which owners in an area are most likely to sell in the coming months. It is pitched to lenders and agencies alike, and aimed at those doing enough volume to act on it. At the smaller end, agents lean on cheaper tools that write listing copy, enhance photos and answer first enquiries automatically.
The adoption is real but uneven. In National Australia Bank's 2026 survey of small and medium businesses, 40 per cent said they were already using AI and another 13 per cent planned to. Of those already using it, 22 per cent called the gains transformational, and productivity was the most commonly cited benefit, named by 58 per cent.
Why property caught the regulator's eye
What makes real estate different from most industries is where the data comes from: you, in person, often at a moment when you are focused on the house rather than the form. That asymmetry is exactly what caught the regulator's eye.
In the first week of January 2026, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the federal privacy regulator known as the OAIC, launched its first-ever privacy compliance sweep. It is reviewing around 60 organisations across six sectors that collect personal information face to face. Rental and property is one of them. The regulator singled out real estate agents asking for phone numbers at open homes as the kind of practice it is examining, warning that consumers at these events often lack the information to decide what they are handing over. Organisations found with non-compliant privacy policies can face infringement notices and penalties of up to $66,000.
The Privacy Commissioner's concern is over-collection: gathering more personal information than a task actually needs, then holding it. An agent needs a way to contact a serious buyer. Whether that justifies a phone number from every person who walks through, stored and fed into a scoring engine, is the question the sweep is testing.
What it means for buyers
In practice you can often decline to give a phone number and still inspect a home, and you can ask why any detail is being collected and where it goes. It matters beyond privacy: an agent who knows you are pre-approved, house-hunting hard and emotionally attached to a property holds a stronger hand when the price is negotiated. The less an algorithm can infer about your urgency, the more even the field.
What it means for agents
The sweep is a prompt to check the basics. Publish a clear privacy policy, tell people what you are collecting and why at the point you ask, and collect only what the job requires. The tools that rank buyers are legitimate, but the data feeding them has to be gathered lawfully.
AI is moving up the chain, from pricing the home to reading the people in the room. The 2026 sweep is the first real test of where the line sits, and it will not be the last.
