The Human Edge in an AI World

Artificial intelligence is now embedded in almost every part of the homebuying process. Buyers are using it to search for homes, estimate payments, compare lenders, and organize documents. Three in four homebuyers already assume AI is part of their transaction before they ever speak to an agent or a lender.

That said, trust in AI to help find a home dropped from 30 percent in 2025 to 16 percent in 2026 according to Cotality's AI in Housing 2026 report. Buyers are using AI more while trusting it less. They expect it to be there but they are not comfortable letting it make the final call.

What Buyers Actually Want

The Cotality data makes it clear that buyers want speed and scale from technology combined with certainty from real people. Nearly half of respondents said they would pay extra to have a human expert verify AI generated decisions on the largest financial transaction of their lives.

That is the exact value proposition agents and lenders have always offered. The difference now is that buyers are starting to articulate it in a way they never had to before because an alternative now exists.

What This Means for Your Business

Last month we talked about who owns the borrower relationship. This week the data is telling us that buyers themselves are willing to pay to make sure the answer to that question is a human being.

Those who attempt to compete with the technology on speed, efficiency, or information access will struggle because AI will win that race every time.

Buyers want someone with judgment built from experience, accountability when something goes wrong, a relationship that exists before, during, and long after the transaction closes, and the ability to read a room, hear what a client is not saying, and make calls that no algorithm can make. The agents and lenders who make it clear that is the value they bring to the table are the ones who are hardest to replace.