NEW YORK – Nov. 9, 2018 – Voice assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, are finding more uses in real estate, and not just for a home search but also for transferring money. Some property managers are already experimenting with a system that allows tenants to tell Amazon’s voice assistant to “Pay my rent.”
A new deal between Zego and S2 Capital is linking smart-home devices in some 30,000 apartments over the next three years.
“We have built a team of seasoned real estate professionals and technology visionaries to deliver a solution that is setting the standard for the next generation resident app,” Zego CEO Adam Blake told HousingWire.
NTT Data Services has implemented an Amazon Alexa skill that caters to mortgage companies, allowing loan officers to look up and check the status of loans using voice commands.
Megan Geyer, NTT data services director of customer experience for financial services, says they believe there are two main types of skills that can be used with Alexa: informational – where Alexa looks up and gives the user specific information – and transactional – where the user can ask Alexa to perform an action, such as Zego and S2 Capital’s rent payment example.
“Companies don’t know if it’s too early to be investing in this, but right now they should be at least exploring how voice interface could complement their digital experience,” Geyer says. They should “see if there is a natural fit for voice interface to solve problems. If there is a natural fit, then that’s where voice interface should be.”
As HousingWire, a publication for the mortgage industry, reports, “It won’t be long before consumers are saying, ‘Alexa, get me a mortgage.'”
The real estate industry has increasingly been experimenting with voice-assistant devices for business, such as requesting information about homes for sale in the area or using AI at open houses to deliver property details.
Source: “Coming Soon: ‘Alexa, Pay My Rent,'” HousingWire (Nov. 5, 2018) and “Should Mortgage Lenders Begin Implementing Voice Automation Technology?” HousingWire (Nov. 2, 2018)