The role of AI in real estate is increasing speedily. What buyers want now is someone to keep it in check.
American homebuyers have grown comfortable with the idea that technology shapes their search for a home. What they have not grown comfortable with is letting that technology make the final call. A sweeping new survey from data analytics firm Cotality reveals a sharp tension inside today’s housing market.
Buyers across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia now assume automated tools sit behind home searches, mortgage offers, property listings, insurance decisions, and valuations. Yet those same buyers want clearer disclosure, meaningful consent, and human oversight before any of those tools influence decisions that carry real financial weight.
Cotality released the findings on April 16, 2026. The results paint a clear picture. AI in real estate has become expected. Trust in it has not kept pace.
Trust falls even as AI spreads
The headline number tells the story. Cotality found that 75% of buyers already believe that AI in real estate plays some role in the homebuying process. Yet confidence in that technology has moved sharply in the opposite direction.
Trust in AI tools to help find a home dropped from 30% in 2025 to just 16% in 2026. That decline happened over a single year while the technology became more common across lending systems, property platforms, and insurance products. Wider adoption did not build wider confidence.
Buyers are also losing patience with errors. At least 70% of respondents across all age groups said mistakes from automated real estate tools would be unacceptable. Speed may attract buyers to digital platforms, but accuracy matters far more when decades of debt and home ownership sit on the line.
John Rogers, chief data and analytics officer at Cotality, put it plainly.
“Buyers are not asking whether AI is involved — they assume it is,” Rogers said. “The question they are now asking is whether the industry has earned the right to use it in decisions that change lives and finances.”
A flawed valuation or an opaque mortgage score can determine what families borrow, what homes they can afford, and what financial risk they carry for years.
Younger buyers want speed but still demand accountability
One of the more surprising findings involves younger consumers. Gen Z and millennial buyers show stronger openness to AI in real estate during the home search process. Half of Gen Z respondents said such tools would make them feel more confident about buying, selling, or insuring a home.
However, that openness has clear limits. Younger buyers also showed more willingness than older groups to pay for human verification of AI-generated results. That finding flips a common industry assumption. Digital natives may embrace faster workflows, but they still want someone accountable when things go wrong.
Cotality’s data supports the case for speed. AI in real estate could cut mortgage processing timelines by one to three months. For buyers navigating competitive markets with tight budgets, it is a meaningful advantage. Even so, the demand for human backup remains strong across every generation surveyed.
Disclosure has become a dealbreaker
Transparency now sits at the center of buyer concerns about AI in real estate.
More than two-thirds of respondents said clear disclosure of AI use matters to them. Cotality found that 37% believe disclosure should become mandatory, a figure that climbed to 61% among baby boomers. Nearly half of buyers said lenders and insurers should not run AI-based property valuations without prior approval. Meanwhile, 64% worry that automated systems may recycle inaccurate or unverified data.
Those concerns send a direct signal to the industry. Companies that label AI-generated outputs clearly and explain how their tools work may earn stronger buyer loyalty than competitors that keep the process hidden. Transparency around AI in real estate could become a genuine competitive advantage.
U.S. buyers lean toward human guidance
Country-level data from the survey shows American buyers hold particularly strong preferences for human involvement at critical points in a transaction.
In the United States, 55% of buyers said they would rather work with a person to secure a mortgage, up from 46% the previous year. Two-thirds preferred human help over automated systems for legal guidance, up from 54%. More than half trusted people over technology when assessing natural disaster risk tied to a property.
Those numbers show exactly where real estate professionals can prove their value. Technology may help buyers search faster and compare rates more easily. But when legal, financial, or safety decisions arrive, most buyers still want a person making the call.
Cotality urged the industry to label AI influence in marketing materials, explain how automated tools shape housing decisions, and maintain clear records covering data sources, outputs, and client consent.
The buyer’s message is unambiguous. AI in real estate can help move the process forward. But humans still need to check the work.
What do you think? Should every major automated decision in homebuying require human review, or do you trust AI in real estate to get it right? Please share your views in the comments below.