Ten Questions With Bobby Bryant, Founder and CEO of Ask DOSS

Voice search is often touted as the future of search engines and voice searches already make up more than 20% of all searches on Google. Real estate portals and marketplaces are essentially vertical search engines, but it doesn't look like any of the big portal companies are planning for voice search yet.

An OMP reader put us on to one real estate business that is embracing voice search technology - Ask Doss. We spoke to CEO / founder (and self-confessed voice search obsessive) Bobby Bryant to get to know a bit more about the company...

Bobby Bryant, CEO & founder of Doss

What is the problem that Ask Doss solves?

Our objective at DOSS via our Digital Real Estate Marketplace is to beautifully design an end-to-end high tech solution that improves the way people list, search, and service their home. We do that by better automating and streamlining the process, lowering transactional costs, and increasing transactional efficiencies.

Who is Ask Doss designed for and how is it monetised?

As a Digital Real Estate Marketplace, DOSS is designed to improve the lives of everybody in the real estate ecosystem: Agents, Buyers, Homeowners, Loan Officers, Renters, Sellers, Service Providers, etc…

DOSS participates directly in the revenue stream of these verticals. We do this by franchising our brand and connecting Agents, Loan Officers, and Service Providers with consumers in their local communities in exchange for an industry-standard referral fee or subscription fee. That model will be different when DOSS scales outside of the United States.

What is Ask Doss’s USP?

Recently backed by Google, DOSS is built on an Intelligent User Interface (IUI) that best mobilizes everything that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has to offer. The ability to centralize, democratize, and humanize BIG DATA among other things is what makes our development special. 

What is Ask Doss’s biggest challenge?

Our biggest challenge is evolving the consumer's behavior. There are several real estate search portals throughout North America and around the world. However, we are excited about our partnerships, technology, and value proposition for both the Agent and Consumer. 

Can you see the big portals like Zillow and Realtor.com turning to voice search in the future?

We believe that everything will eventually turn to voice. It’s inevitable! Voice is the next paradigm shift. DOSS is an early adopter and pioneer of this technology in the real estate space because we unequivocally understand its infinite possibilities. 

What is one thing our readers might not know about but would probably find interesting about the world of voice search?

We created DOSS because our team collectively believes that home search can be drastically improved. Most real estate search portals have very little to no artificial intelligence and at times appear to be white-labels of each other as they show the same basic property data and search features.

Conversational Artificial Intelligence (Voice) is much more than playing music, turning on-and-off lights, setting timers, and asking mindless questions. Our development allows us to integrate infinite amounts of relevant data about any property and its surroundings so a consumer can have a better, faster, and smarter experience. 

Am I right in saying that your background is in online brokerage rather than tech? How and why did you get involved with voice search?

I’m a non-technical CEO/Co-Founder. I’ve been in real estate for over 20 years. The last twelve of those years were spent doing a sickening amount of research and development, along with building DOSS.

The idea of DOSS came after watching IBM Watson beat the two winningest players in Jeopardy history. Months later, APPLE introduced Siri to the world. This was before Alexa and Google Assistant were created. However, I instantly envisioned how we could improve the real estate industry by building a Voice-Activated Intelligent Assistant specifically for the real estate industry. 

What is Ask Doss currently working on?

We are building something that has never been done before. Technically speaking, our objective at this time is to continue adding more data, functionality and improving the user experience. On the business side, we are preparing to expand DOSS by selling franchises. 

What is the most common request from clients?

Consumers want to be able to do as much as humanly possible on their own and before engaging an Agent. And when possible, they want options that empower them to do everything themselves. Consumers are smarter and want to be more informed and involved. 

How do you see the market evolving and what will you be doing to be ahead of the curve?

I see every market around the world evolving to better serve Millennials, Gen Z, and the generations that follow… They are the largest, most diverse, and most educated generations in history.

These kids are different! They do things differently! And, they are questioning the old guard of every industry! At DOSS, we are already doing what we believe will catapult us ahead. And that is, creating something that people want. It’s just that simple!