Video
I Built an AI Phone Agent, Here's How It Went
Walking through the process of building an AI-powered phone agent for real estate lead qualification, from concept to deployment and results.
Published · 7:50
An AI phone agent can now qualify a seller lead end to end: it asks about condition, ownership length, tenants and price, then captures name, address, phone and email. Latency on speech-to-speech models finally sits low enough to put in front of customers. Longer calls still drift, so start off hours and in low-risk parts of the business.
Transcript
There's been a lot of hype about AI agents and their ability to replace your lead management team, your sales team, and actually handling all of your inbound or outbound calls potentially. I think up until now everything I've seen is the latency is too high, the models are too slow, it doesn't give the right sort of user experience.
Until recently, OpenAI just came out with its realtime speech to speech model, and in this video I actually wanted to demo my experience with it. The clip I'm about to share is unadulterated, unedited, and you get a real feel in terms of the back and forth of the model. I would argue that this is sort of a tipping point -- that latency is starting to get really good and it's getting to the point where I would actually put this in front of customers.
You could leverage this either to have deeper sales calls with more questions and more qualification, then hand it off to your team to take it the rest of the way down the process. Or alternatively you could just use it simply for call deflection or routing. But I think it adds a ton of value in terms of the scalability, the always-on sort of functionality to either take a message, collect information, and start to build a conversation with a customer. So I'm going to go ahead and let's just jump into it. You can watch for yourself -- once you kind of get a gist of it feel free to skip ahead and we'll talk a little bit more about some of the options at the end of this.
"Hey, this is Jason."
"Hey Jason, nice to meet you. Are you calling about a property you're interested in selling?"
"Yeah, you guys have been mailing me a bunch about one of the properties I own and, you know, even made an offer price. I just want to see what you guys can do."
"Gotcha. The offer price we included was a ballpark figure based on public info just to kick things off. We'd love to learn more about the property details and figure out a price and terms that work for both of us. So what kind of property are we talking about?"
"This is a single family home in Royal Oak, Michigan."
"All right, a single family home in Royal Oak. To get a clearer picture, could you share a bit about the size, the current condition, and any repairs that might be needed?"
"Yeah, it's maybe a thousand square feet. Probably need some new HVAC. Could use a new roof. Yeah, I'd say that's probably about it."
"Got it. So about 1,000 square feet needing some HVAC work and potentially a new roof. How long have you owned this property and is anyone living there right now?"
"Yeah, I've had it about maybe 10 years and I have tenants there currently."
"10 years, nice. And you've got tenants in there currently. Does the property have any special features or anything unique about it?"
"It's a corner lot. It's walking distance to downtown. And yeah, that's probably about it."
"Corner lot and walking distance to downtown -- that's definitely a plus. Anything else you think I should know about the property?"
"No, I think that's about it."
"All right, thanks for sharing all that. Since you've owned it for a good while and it's in a great location, what's making you consider selling?"
"Yeah, I think it's just time to cash out and reinvest the money."
"Makes sense. Looking to cash out and reinvest -- that sounds like a solid plan. Even when we come to an offer you're happy with, there are some things that can sometimes get in the way. Is it all right if we chat about those for a minute?"
"Sure, what questions do you have?"
"Great. As far as timing and logistics go, when would you ideally want to close on the property and get paid? And if you decided to sell, would anyone else need to be in the loop on the decision?"
"No other people involved. In terms of closing, probably in the next one to three months."
"Perfect. No other decision makers and looking to close in the next one to three months. Lastly, are you exploring other options like listing the property or working with other companies, or just seeing what's out there?"
"I don't think I'll list it, but yeah, I mean, obviously want to explore all options."
"Gotcha, keeping your options open. Let me just recap what we've discussed about the property to make sure I've got it right. It's about 1,000 square feet, needs some HVAC work and possibly a new roof, and it's a corner lot within walking distance to downtown. Does that sound about right?"
"That sounds right."
"Great. Next step is to set up an inspection to check out the condition of the property. After that we can provide you with an offer. What were you hoping to get for the property?"
"I'm looking for around $350,000."
"$350,000, okay. Depending on the condition and repairs needed, do you have a bottom price that you need for this to make sense for you?"
"I probably need at least $325,000."
"Got it, looking for at least $325,000. I'll share this info with my team and one of our purchasing managers will follow up with what we can offer. Anything else you'd like to know about working with America's Home Buyer before we wrap up?"
"I forget, did I give you my contact information?"
"No worries, we can cover that now. Could you please give me your full name, the address of the property, and the best phone number to reach you?"
"It's Jason. An email? Yeah, thanks. Jason Macht. It's 828 East 3rd Street, Royal Oak, Michigan. Phone number is 248-321-2638."
"Got it. Jason Macht, 828 East 3rd Street, Royal Oak, Michigan. Phone number is 248-321-2638. And what's the best email for you?"
"It's jm@gmail.com."
"Perfect. jm@gmail.com. Thanks Jason, you can expect a call back from someone on our team in the next 24 to 48 hours. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. Enjoy the rest of your day."
"Great, thanks."
So there you have it. That was an AI agent with a pretty comprehensive prompt in terms of the questions we were having it ask, the things it was answering and responding to, and where it was trying to lead the call. You can really get to any level of sophistication that you want and get as comprehensive as possible in the actual call flow.
I would say after some time maybe it starts to break down or has a higher probability of maybe going off the tracks and not taking the conversation where you want it. So I think in terms of implementing something like this in your business, you really need to be thinking about what are the trade-offs, what are the pros and cons, and to what extent do I trust that it will consistently and reliably solve the customer's needs and be able to navigate the conversations that we would be having.
So I think this is the time to actually start exploring these. Start to look at how you can maybe test integration into your business -- maybe off hours and some low-risk areas of the business. But as we've seen over time, these models have gotten better and better and better. So the sooner that you get started and actually start leveraging these and playing around with these and experimenting in your business with them -- you want to be an early adopter of these AI models and figure out the best application within your business in order to drive the maximum amount of value.
Common questions
- Can an AI phone agent actually qualify a real estate seller lead?
- Yes, and the unedited demo call in this video runs the full sequence. The agent asks what kind of property it is, the square footage, the condition and repairs needed, how long the owner has held it, whether tenants are in place, and what price they are looking for. It then captures the name, property address, phone number and email, reads them back to confirm, and sets the expectation of a callback within 24 to 48 hours.
- Is AI voice latency low enough to use with customers yet?
- It is, and that is the change. Earlier attempts were too slow and the models too laggy to give a decent user experience. OpenAI's realtime speech-to-speech model brought latency to the point where the back and forth feels natural, which is why the demo in this video is unedited and unadulterated rather than cut together.
- What can an AI phone agent be used for besides full qualification?
- Two lighter uses carry most of the value with less risk. The first is deeper qualification: let the agent ask more questions than a rep would have time for, then hand a warmer lead to the team. The second is call deflection and routing, where the agent takes a message, collects contact details and directs the call. Both give you always-on coverage that scales without adding headcount.
- Where does an AI phone agent break down?
- Over the length of a call. A comprehensive prompt holds a sophisticated call flow well at first, but the longer the conversation runs the higher the probability it drifts off the track you intended. That is the trade-off to weigh before deploying: how consistently and reliably do you trust it to navigate the conversations your business actually has?
- How should a business start with AI voice agents?
- Start now, but start small. Test the integration in off hours and in low-risk parts of the business rather than on your primary inbound line. The models keep improving, so the value of starting is in learning where the best application sits in your specific business before you need it to work at scale.