Ryan Darani
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October 15, 2025
Zillow and ChatGPT Partnership: What Does It Mean for Real Estate?
This, naturally, didn’t go down well in the real estate industry. Zillow monopolized traditional search (along with other portals), which made it nearly impossible for individual agents to rank enough to generate leads from Google.
And now, it seems they’re restarting the cycle.
Zillow recognized the opportunity that AI search provides them.
With 40% of homeowners already starting their search with ChatGPT, it makes sense for Zillow to be more intentional about its presence on the platform.
By showing different listing types natively in ChatGPT, homeowners can now directly take action in the app… no need to visit the website anymore.
In their words, it makes sense for this partnership to exist for homeowners, which it does.
My prediction?
Zillow’s website traffic will take a hit, but its conversions will go up exponentially.
However, despite all of this, the underlying fact is that this isn’t a healthy partnership for realtors.
But… It’s not all red flags.
The only saving grace here is that home buyers and sellers must explicitly ask for Zillow in ChatGPT.
For example:
‘Zillow show me a home in Dallas, TX under $750,000 with 4 bedrooms’.
This search nuance saved real estate agents. If users didn’t have to ask for Zillow, well, the monopoly would start all over again.
However, agents still have the opportunity to win with AI search. Right now, it’s a level playing field. That might not be true in 12-18 months.
How can agents do that?
Well, we start here:
(This sounds complicated, and it is. But we’ve produced a 30-page PDF showing you the exact strategies you can use to get listings from ChatGPT. Download that here free).
The longer real estate agents ignore this partnership, the harder it’ll be to escape a reality where Zillow dictates their business (again).
There’s nothing you can do to change the partnership.
However, there are steps agents can take to still win on ChatGPT and within AI search.
Here’s what our team says.
Ryan Darani, Co-Founder:
‘Agents have been notoriously bad at following other agents. Social media works? Everybody does it. You get cold leads? Everybody joins in.
What does that create? A market where fighting for attention becomes both expensive and inefficient.
Agents need to stop risking their business by continuing to do what they’ve always done. It doesn’t work. That’s why only a handful of agents make up for the majority of the real estate sales.
AI search (for now) is the single greatest opportunity to build a moat around their brand that cannot be undone. Produce more content on your site. Get featured in your local press. And do it for 6 months.
Even with the Zillow partnership, ChatGPT would have no choice but to recommend you.’
Tim Harvey, Co-Founder & CEO
‘Zillow is looking for more ways to capture/keep traffic.
They also recognize the importance of 'getting in early' with AI as search behavior evolves. The more Zillow can be cited, the more it remains top of mind with consumers.
They monetize getting leads for agents, so like us, they want to appear as the trusted source so they can keep a steady flow of traffic to their site & leads for their agents.’
Zillow says no, but investigations are ongoing to determine how MLS data is being transmitted between platforms.
WAVGroup states:
“Zillow’s IDX licenses permit it to display MLS data on Zillow.com and its mobile apps. Those permissions do not extend to publishing or transmitting that data on any other domain, especially one controlled by another company.”
(Source: Zillow seeks forgiveness, not permission)
Do I believe that Zillow broke any rules? No, I don’t. Do I think the rules have been bent slightly with OpenAI… yep, absolutely.
There’s no world where Zillow would risk legal backlash for partnering with ChatGPT. They already generate 400 million visits a month to their website from traditional search. It’s a position they didn’t need to rush.
What I don’t think agents understand is that the partnership is basically a storefront.
ChatGPT is making requests to Zillow’s website directly. An MCP server makes the call, and then data is provided to OpenAI. Without getting too technical, nobody has handed over the keys and given up domain control.
(From what I can tell).
It’s what we’ve been telling agents since January 2025.
AI search isn’t going anywhere. It will become the most sought-after marketing platform for agents, and those who wait to capitalize on it will lose out. And lose big.
Other portals like Realtor.com and Homes.com have already adopted conversational search. It won’t be long before OpenAI allows companies to build natively within the app and, at that point, it will be Google 2.0.
ChatGPT has 800 million weekly users and billions of searches every day. By the end of 2025, I suspect it will be billions of weekly users.
That’s not a bubble waiting to pop. That’s a new ecosystem of traffic, leads, and listings being created right before our eyes.
We’re witnessing the next 10 years of marketing being created in real time.
AI will not slow down, and neither will the adoption rate of home buyers and sellers.
The question is, will agents do what they’ve always done? Or will they finally see the opportunity of a lifetime?
Only time will tell.
