I think we’re about to witness one of the biggest changes in property marketing since the internet arrived.
While some agents are still wondering whether AI has a place in their business, we’ve been getting on with testing it. We’ve explored dozens of applications, but there’s one that really stands out for me: using AI to enhance property photography and help buyers see the true potential of a home.
As a photographer for national newspapers early in my career, I know how good photography sells. Great imagery has always been one of the foundations of Spicerhaart and remains every bit as important today.
Over recent months, we’ve been trialling AI staging on real property images and seeing what it can – and cannot – do.
The technology is impressive, but the biggest lesson for me isn’t simply that AI can make a photograph look better. It’s that something which appears to offer a competitive advantage today can become a standard feature available to every agent tomorrow.
When everyone has access to the same technology, owning the tool is no longer the advantage. Knowing how, when and when not to use it becomes far more important.
Every agent has walked into a property where the washing-up is piled high, the children’s toys are all over the lounge, clothes are draped across the bedroom floor and the seller apologises that they “didn’t have time to tidy up”.
Traditionally, we’ve had two choices: rearrange the room ourselves or ask if we can come back another day, neither of which is ideal.
Now AI can remove those distractions in seconds without changing the size, shape or essential character of the property.
That’s only the start. An empty room can become a furnished living room, not merely with one generic sofa and coffee table, but in a style that suits the property and the likely buyer – whether that’s contemporary, coastal, Scandinavian or traditional.
Equally, if a room has just been replastered after years of wallpaper or is halfway through refurbishment, AI can add colour and furniture to demonstrate what the finished result could look like.
We’re not pretending to buyers that’s what exists today. We’re helping them imagine tomorrow.
Developers have been doing something similar with CGI for years. Buyers understand that a clearly labelled artist’s impression represents what a new home could become rather than what is physically standing in front of them today. There’s no reason why owners of existing homes should not benefit from the same ability to show potential, provided it’s done transparently.
The crucial point, though, is trust.
AI can remove clutter from a photograph. It cannot remove the agent’s responsibility for what that photograph shows.
Trading Standards are clear that enhanced images should be clearly labelled, and buyers should also be able to see the original. The last thing our industry needs is technology that misleads people or wastes their time.
There’s a world of difference between removing temporary clutter, furnishing an empty room or demonstrating a possible decorative scheme and making a small kitchen appear twice its actual size, hiding damp or cracks, changing a boundary or disguising a poor view.
One is helping someone see the potential. The other is deception. As estate agents, we must know exactly where that line is and make sure nobody in our business crosses it.
The early feedback from sellers in our trials has been fascinating. Many have been more excited by the enhanced images than the originals because, for the first time, they are seeing their own home through the eyes of a prospective buyer rather than through the clutter of everyday life.
That’s incredibly powerful. Good marketing has always been about helping people see the very best version of a property.
What’s also struck me is just how quickly the economics are changing.
Only a few years ago, creating enhanced photography, video, virtual furnishings and multiple versions of marketing materials required several different specialists and a substantial budget.
Increasingly, video can be generated from still images, social media content can be adapted in minutes and different versions of the same room can be created almost instantly.
That makes sophisticated property marketing available far more quickly and consistently than before. But it also creates a danger.
AI can make mediocre marketing faster just as easily as it can make good marketing more affordable.
If every agent chooses the same virtual sofa, the same grey walls and the same Scandinavian living room, we won’t have improved property marketing. We’ll simply have created a new kind of sameness.
That’s why taste and judgment will become more important, not less. Someone still has to choose the right photograph, understand the buyer, recognise the character of the property and decide when an enhancement adds value and when it simply looks artificial.
Before anyone accuses me of abandoning photography altogether, let me confess something. I’m still a photography purist.
I still love the skill of capturing the right image, understanding the light and finding the perfect angle. Great photography remains one of the foundations of our business, and the original photograph will often be better than an image that has been over-enhanced.
AI should not replace good photography. It should give good photographers and agents more options.
It can help buyers see possibilities they might otherwise have missed and allow agents to market homes in ways that simply weren’t commercially viable before.
But agents should not become emotionally attached to one platform or one piece of software. The technology will continue to change at extraordinary speed. A supposedly exclusive feature can become universally available almost overnight.
The sensible approach is to keep testing, use the best tools available and never lose sight of the fact that technology is only as good as the judgment of the person controlling it.
I’ve no doubt that AI staging will soon be as commonplace as professional photography is today.
The question is no longer whether the technology is coming, or even who built it first. It is whether estate agents can use it creatively and responsibly without making every property look the same or damaging the trust on which our industry depends.
The winners won’t necessarily be the agents with the most AI. They’ll be the agents with the best judgment.
Paul Smith is founder and chairman at Spicerhaart.
