Lately I’ve been thinking more about how AI can help me and my clients in our businesses. I am still pretty skeptical about aspects of it since I’ve had mixed results with a lot of the tools I’ve tried, but it will be really interesting (and probably kinda scary!) to see AI improve in the years to come.

I thought it would be fun to share a few of the ways I’ve been able to use AI to help me in my business.

Let’s get into it!

1. Brainstorm better blog post titles.

For the unacquainted, it may be surprising how challenging it can be to come up with just the perfect blog title. You want it to be attention-grabbing but not too sales-y, succinct but just descriptive enough, and ideally include keywords for SEO. That’s a lot to accomplish in just a few words!

In this instance, I was writing a blog about what a real estate brokerage’s marketing plan should aim to accomplish. After writing the blog, my brain was pretty fried and I just could not come up with a title I liked. So I typed this into ChatGPT:

“What are other ways to phrase this blog title: 6 Things Your Real Estate Brokerage’s Marketing Needs to Accomplish?”

Here’s what ChatGPT responded with:

While I didn’t love any of the exact titles, there were some excellent nuggets of inspiration. “Objectives” is of course so much better than saying “things.” “Key objectives” is even better. Then, I liked the idea of “drive” so much more than “needs to accomplish.”

So I swapped some things around and presto chango, here’s a title I was happy with:

6 Key Objectives That Should Drive Your Real Estate Brokerage Marketing in 2024

Thanks for the help, ChatGPT!

2. Brainstorm ideas for the cover image of a blog post.

In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed that free photo sites like Unsplash and Pexels have had so many more photos to choose from. I’m so glad we have resources like this (free, no less!). Recently, I was trying to find the perfect cover photo for a blog that’s about “the non-negotiables of your social media strategy” (it’s a working title and the blog is still in draft mode).

I spent some time thinking about how to represent the idea of “non-negotiable” in a photo. I was lacking inspiration at the moment and could only think of… a rock. A big rock that can’t move? I was totally stumped.

So this is what I asked ChatGPT:

“What types of imagery would be good to convey the idea of "non-negotiable"?”

In mere seconds, ChatGPT shared a huge list. A few of its ideas for visually representing “non-negotiable” included suggestions like concrete walls or barriers, a brick wall, a locked safe, stone pillars or clumps, iron chains or shackles, a mountain peak, a rock formation, black and white imagery, a stop sign, a roadblock, and about a dozen more ideas.

I went back to Unsplash and Pexels and started my search once more. Nothing was looking quite right for the vibe of my blog… but in my search, the idea of a "pinky swear" popped into my head. Ah, I love that idea; it represents a promise, but has connotations of friendship and the human touch. Perfect for this particular blog! So I went and found the photo below that will be the cover photo of my blog once it’s published.

I don't think I would have arrived at this option if ChatGPT didn't help me get there. I appreciated the brainstorming buddy!

3. Changed the size of a design in Canva using the Magic Switch tool.

After designing a square graphic for social media, I thought it would be fun to try and resize into a vertical image perfect for Instagram + Facebook Stories. I used Canva’s Magic Switch tool, and selected the size for Stories.

The "Before" graphic is the one I created myself from scratch. The "After" graphic is what Canva transformed my "Before" graphic into.

Well, the Story graphic that Canva's AI tool created was not usable, but it was a decent start. Resizing the overall graphic is honestly a big help, and I can resize the text and rearrange the graphics fairly quickly on my own. However, this was helpful enough that I will probably use this AI feature again in the future.

4. Made sure I wasn't forgetting to include anything in a blog with the help of ChatGPT.

In my recently published blog “How to Gain Confidence with Your Writing: Easy Proofreading Tips for Real Estate Agents,” I shared 9 ideas for proofreading your content as a real estate agent.

Once I finished writing the blog, I was curious as to whether or not I had left out an easy proofreading or editing tip. What did I forget about?

I asked ChatGPT to share all of the tips it had for proofreading. It shared a list, and everything that I wanted to keep on my list was already there. Yay!

In this instance, ChatGPT didn’t help me add anything new, but it gave me some assurance that I wasn’t leaving out anything major. I call it a win!

5. I used Canva's AI tool to make the photo in the intro of this email!

Ok this one is cheating a little, but I sure had fun trying to get Canva’s AI image generator (part of their Magic Media feature) to come up with a unique-ish photo for me.

When you are asking AI to help you generate a specific image, the prompt you use is really important. For my experiment, I just typed in the first idea that popped into my head, which was something like "woman with brown hair working at a computer with the help of AI."

Here were my first results:

Not bad, not bad! (Look at the hands though… AI really struggles with hands.) But it wasn’t quite what I wanted. Instead of saying “AI” I said “robot” since I wanted the image to be a bit more playful, but when a lot of the robots ended up looking pretty menacing, I added “friendly robot” to the prompt (ha ha).

I decided to play with some of the art styles, and tried out a few more cartoony versions I liked a lot more:

AI has been the hot topic in the real estate industry for a while now, but I'm super curious:

How are AI tools helping you in your real estate business?

I would legit love to hear what you've been able to implement, and which AI tools you are loving.