Realtor.com Owner News Corp in Conversation With OpenAI to Build Product to Take on Zillow

Realtor.com's owner, the powerful media conglomerate News Corp, is involved in high-level discussions with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, to build a product that the company envisions could "enable Realtor to become number one in the U.S".

Speaking at a recent conference hosted by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said that he had personally discussed the possibility of a real estate collaboration with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

"Both Sam and I are deeply into property, and from a personal reading perspective. I think there’s a certain empathy there that will play out among the two companies as we evolve the discussions."

Currently, Realtor.com is among a chasing pack of real estate marketplaces behind the Seattle-based Zillow. In the latest in a series of claims and counter-claims related to market leadership metrics, Thomson told the bank's audience that Realtor.com saw "256 million visits" in June, a figure he claimed was four times that of CoStar-owned Homes.com and twice that of Redfin.

As for revenue, Realtor.com clearly lies in second place behind Zillow and ahead of Homes.com. Thomson said that Realtor.com boss Damian Eales has used the recent "fallow period" of US home sales to retool the business and "sort out some of the inconsistencies in the software experience for realtors". The company expects revenues for the portal to pick up as mortgage rates decrease.

The scope and details of a possible real estate product collaboration remain to be seen, with Thompson saying that discussions are still at an early stage.

News Corp has been working with OpenAI since May 2024, when the companies announced they had entered into a partnership that sees OpenAI given access to current and archived content from News Corp's many publications. The announcement was significant in the world of journalism and signified a potential shift towards collaboration between AI platforms and the Media.

Now, another type of collaboration may be on the cards for OpenAI...