Full transcript: Rebecca Moroney — Wayscape: putting an AI assistant inside a five-product real estate ecosystem

← Back to the episode show notes: Rebecca Moroney — Wayscape: putting an AI assistant inside a five-product real estate ecosystem

This is an automated transcript of the episode, lightly edited for readability. Please excuse any errors.

Rebecca Moroney: Thank you, Kylie. It's a pleasure.

Kylie Davis: And, um, and congratulations on your win at the PropTech Awards. It was great to see you there, and, um, and well done again.

Rebecca Moroney: Thank you.

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Rebecca Moroney: And we're, we're very shocked. Um, but you know, really pleased at some of the really good early, um, you know, recognition we're getting with the stuff that we're delivering, so thank you.

Kylie Davis: So look, let's dive in and, and share with everyone, um, the story behind WayScape.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah.

Kylie Davis: The first question I ask is always the hardest one, which is what is the WayScape, uh, elevator pitch?

Rebecca Moroney: Yes. So our elevator pitch is really for the very first time in Australia, if not globally, we are bringing together, um, key platforms into the one ecosystem that really enables agents to be very efficient with what they're doing. Um, it enables them to get accurate data, um, at their fingertips, but also leverage the power of technology and AI to do things better, faster.

Kylie Davis: Cool. Okay. So, um, so what does the PropTech do exactly? So what does WayScape do exactly, and who for?

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. So we're an ecosystem, um, of products, um, and solutions that essentially, um, you know, enables the, uh, integration of all the platforms that real estate agents use and buyer's agents, um, in that one place. So you don't worry have, have to worry about going to disparate systems and worrying about all these different logins and let alone, you know, paying for all these different systems as well. Um, you go to one place and all the information is at your fingertips. And so we've got five key products that really cater to specific outcomes that you're trying to achieve. Um, most importantly, powered by your very own assistant called Dee, um, who serves you, um, and learns you over time, as most AIs do. So it's truly, um, a, a game changer in the real estate, uh, market, um, and helps to automate, um, and bring things to life with very minimal effort.

Kylie Davis: Okay. So tell us about what those five different sort of pillars or things in the ecosystem are.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. So we've got Dee, which is the, the bot.

Kylie Davis: Yep.

Rebecca Moroney: Um, and Dee also is activated under, uh, Wavelink, which is, uh, a telephonist. So not only can she make inbound and outbound calls on your behalf or as your assistant or however you want to picture her, or, um, but she can also manage your social media accounts and your review platforms and communicate, um, with, with clients on your behalf. Um-

Kylie Davis: Wow.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. It's, it's pretty cool-... that one actually. Um, she's, she's very clever. Um-

Kylie Davis: Yeah

Rebecca Moroney: ... and one of the, the specific nuances about, you know, Dee is, is she's built on a single language model. And so when I say that, um, compared to a ChatGPT, which really is a world of resource based on anything, we have trained this machine specifically pertained to real estate, so she truly is an expert. And in the reality of it, we've trained her that much, we can get her to take a client from inquiry to even potential contract if we wanted her to. So she's-... she truly is a wealth of information. But most importantly for agents, um, it helps to manage them to tasks. So she integrates with your calendar and, you know, your to-do lists, um, you know, records conversations if you want, she gives you transcriptions. So the world's endless when it comes to Dee, um, and she powers the entire ecosystem. Um, and so then we've got WayHub, which is a CRM.

Kylie Davis: Yep.

Rebecca Moroney: Um, that CRM, um, is more specifically built for buyer's agents, to be honest with you. Um, but that ability that we have from a CRM perspective when we look at a real estate agent lens is we can then integrate with any CRM provider, um, with the technology that we have, and we can overlay our products and help with the automation and AI implementation into those environments. So, um, that's WayHub in the CRM world.

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Moroney: Um, the core brains of what, what, uh, I guess the, the ecosystem is about is WayIQ. Um, and it's the brains and, and that system there is what brings everything into the one spot. Uh, for a buyer's agent, um, they would simply go, "I'm looking for a property within 15 kilometers of Brisbane, uh, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, 5% yield, and over 15% capital growth." And that will bring up all the properties that are associated to that brief within 30 seconds.

Kylie Davis: Right. Wow. Wow.

Rebecca Moroney: And-

Kylie Davis: Okay

Rebecca Moroney: ... importantly as well, you know, the big problem statement around, um, you know, buyer's agents is around off markets. There's a lot of them out there. 25% of properties purchased last year were in the off market. Um, and so they're not hitting mainstream advertising platforms. So how do we, one, get the digital photography, um, and, and videography to enable our clients to see it? And how do we get our clients to get access to those off markets? And so we have integrated, uh, not only with many, um, you know, providers who have gone about consolidating these opportunities, but we're also enabling real estate agents to directly upload, um, through this portal. And right now, we have, um, over 900 off market properties available through our portals. Um, so WayIQ's great from that perspective. If I look at a real estate agent use case, um, a real estate agent would simply ask WayIQ, um, "I'm engaging with, um, Joe Daly from, uh, 15 Betts Street, um, Kellyville Ridge. Um, I need to generate a, an appraisal and a proposal based on, um, uh, a pitch to take on their listing." And within 30 seconds, that's generated. Now, you can also say, "Just send it to Joe. Um, copy me on it, and also book a meeting with him tomorrow, um, whenever he's available." And so those actions will take place on the agent's behalf, um, and go about, um, getting the outcomes that the agent wants to achieve.

Kylie Davis: Awesome. Okay. So we've got, uh, you've got your CRM, you've got D, and you've got the IQ, but you mentioned that there were five. So is there-

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah, we've, we've got WayTask

Kylie Davis: ... a few more?

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. So we've got WayTask. Um, and I mentioned the problem statement about off markets, no digital photography, videography. Um, and, and that really came to light because, you know, you had to rely on real estate agents to take those photos and videos for you, and not that it's a bad thing, but, you know, sometimes they see what you want the, what, what they want you to see. Um, and so we've created, uh, an environment where agents can post requirements, so photos, videos, pre-purchase or pre-settlement inspections. Um, and someone will pick that up locally, um, and they will actually perform that task in the app and actually deliver the outcome. Um, and, you know, that's... You can almost call it an Airtasker equivalent specific to the real estate industry. Um-

Kylie Davis: Right

Rebecca Moroney: ... and we've since added more capabilities to that, so we're now for real estate agents, um, doing letterbox drops, door-knocking, sales campaigning, and we will then slowly bring in trades. So we want WayTask to be the go-to for anything real estate for agents, um, and property managers, um, to then, you know, hire services to perform tasks for them.

Kylie Davis: Okay. Awesome.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. Um, and last but not least, we've got WaySkill. Um-

Kylie Davis: Yep

Rebecca Moroney: ... uh, WaySkill, uh, the problem statements when it comes to WaySkill is, you know, there's a lack of ongoing training and development, um, to keep up with, you know, what is a, a, a changing legislation over time, um, or helping with lead generation, marketing, whatever that is, anything pertained to being an agent, whether you're a buying or a selling agent. And so WaySkill, um, is a training, uh, support, coaching, and mentoring program, um, that will enable you to consistently harness your skills both, um, leveraging AI, um, delivering that content, um, self-paced, um, but also some real-life coaches to go with it, too. So yeah, it's, um, it's quite a stack. Um, we have two other-

Kylie Davis: It is

Rebecca Moroney: ... products in, in the, in the roadmap for next year, but, um, I'll, I'll surprise with those as we get closer. But some really great opportunity for the real estate industry.

Kylie Davis: Cool. Okay. So look, there is so much to unpack in that, and I'm gonna keep coming back to a couple of things. But before we go too much further, so your background, so you, you were born out of the buyer's agent kind of sector. Is that correct? Is that-

Rebecca Moroney: I was.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. S-

Rebecca Moroney: I was.

Kylie Davis: So, and so, and so WayScapes kind of, and this whole stack sort of has emerged, it has emerged out of that. But, um, tell us a little bit about that origin story and then how now what you're doing, I guess, translates over to sales agents, 'cause it's not, it's not just buyer's agents anymore, is it? No.

Rebecca Moroney: No, not anymore. No. So look, uh, actually my entire professional career has actually been in the IT industry. Um, and, uh, I've been a leader in many, uh, tier one corporate organizations. Um, and, you know, really developed a, a niche with going in and either cleaning up and scaling or developing from new and scaling. So my last gig was with a software company, and I created a brand-new, um, business across Australia, APJ. Um, so from scratch, a strategic pursuit practice dealing with over $20 million deals. Um, and I built that up to 70 people over three years and generated 800 mil of net new business. Um, sadly, we were acquired by a large tech organization, and they made that entire division globally redundant. Um, so I was on that firing line there. But, you know, for a long time, Kylie, I've been very interested in real estate myself. I've owned my own portfolios under super and private, uh, money. Um, owned houses, of course, and sold. Um, and so, you know, I always found myself wanting to just, you know, I was gravitating always back to what's new and emerging? Like, what's something that I can really sink my teeth into and make a mark on? And, um, you know, I stumbled across the buyer's agent space because I, I feel there's large opportunity there for people to leverage those types of functions to, to buy- Good. Um, and both if you're looking as an owner-occupier to live in, it's an exorbitant, exhausting process. Um, you then end up getting hassled with, you know, DMs for the next two years from agents visiting open homes. Um, and you know, it, it's tiring. You know, you wanna sit there and you want to actually just enjoy the purchase that you've made, not, you know, breathe a sigh of relief. Um, and for investments it's making sure that they're getting into the right investment. So I then embarked on that really fast, um, and developed a very strong passion around that, became, um, a licensee, um, within a, a, a, a small period of time. But, you know, due to the, I guess, passion, um, and the invaluable relationships that I developed, I found myself just with too many opportunities and I just couldn't address that myself and my natural gravitation is scaling. So I just went, "That's it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna scale out an agency." And, and Wayfinder, I wanted to, to make a difference in the market providing, you know, bespoke, custom, consultative-based, um, uh, engagement with clients that truly listen to the outcomes they're trying to achieve and delivering them. Um, and so, you know, we've got about 37 agents across the country now. Um, and, um, I've since handed over the fort to my CMO, she's now CEO of that business. Because along the way I, um, each of those problem statements I mentioned before, I was experiencing that myself-

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm

Rebecca Moroney: ... and I'm like, gosh, 20 different logins. Oh my gosh, okay, which system gives me this outcome, and how much am I paying for this one? You know, $15,000 a month of subscriptions just to get access to data so I can info- inform my clients. Um, and then the off-market properties and then, you know, um, that the agent sellers bringing in had different skill sets, so how can I replicate me? I keep getting, I've always been told in my life, "We need another you." And it's like, well, I, I feel sorry for the world first of all. Secondly, like-

Kylie Davis: This is why D was invented.

Rebecca Moroney: Ex- exactly. So, you know, how can we, how can we, you know, get this IP and w- you know, make it repeatable, um, and scale it, you know, fast? Um, and so, you know, all of those problem statements I was feeling myself and I went, "That's it. I'm sick of this. There's an opportunity to really change this." Um, and you know, AI's the no-brainer. Um, you know, AI's been given a bit of a bad rap over the past couple of years, especially in the real estate industry because it's been more targeted towards displacing agents. Um, and I don't believe that that needs to happen. There's this place where agents and AI can work together, but it actually enables them to be better informed, more efficient, and actually serve more clients. That's, that's the intent. Um, so long story short, um, you know, what I had in terms of problem statements, I partnered with an AI, uh, partner and we launched WayScape and they have brought that to life for me. Um, and now we're taking that to market and we're getting really great feedback.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So, so you mentioned before that your, um, CRM start, you know, is basically buyer's agent. What's the difference in the needs that a buyer's agent CRM or from, has compared to like a, a selling agent? What are the kind of key differences there?

Rebecca Moroney: Um, look, uh, the, the real estate agents have more, uh, red tape around, um, you know, forms and stuff like that. Um, the, the analysis that we've done with real estate agents is their use cases are based around, um, addresses more than people. Um-

Kylie Davis: Exactly. Sorry.

Rebecca Moroney: Um, and so if we look at the, like Agentbox as an example, um, you know, they manage their CRM via addresses and I mean, you've got contact lists and s- and so on and so on, but you know, buyer's agents and, and the way we manage the life cycle of that is by person. Um, and so the, the sales stages are fairly similar-ish, um, albeit a few different nuances. Um, and for buyer's agents, their job technically ends once the property exchanges compared to a real estate agent where it's on settlement. Um, but there is definitely an opportunity to expand Wayhub out to the real estate agent sector. But with MRI, Agentbox, you know, and, and the equivalents, you know, heavily dominating the space, I feel, um, you know, the opportunity is more from an integration standpoint and harnessing the power of the rest of the ecosystem first. Um, it's funny, we actually presented at AREC, um, and we were at AREC and we had a booth there and we had a couple of the other CRM providers come up to us and say, "Oh, so looks like we've got some stiff competition." And I just went, "No, not from a CRM perspective." Our core is about efficiency gains, AI, and that's, that's pretty much the core. We made an acquisition of a CRM called Agentmate, um, and that was to break into the buyer's agent space, um, and acquire clients. Um, that's not our core, but what we are leveraging is that subset of clients to leverage out to the rest of the ecosystem. But you know, I, in the, in a utopia, I definitely see Wayhub, um, you know, playing quite strongly in the real estate agent space because the structure of how we can make that work can be heavily, um, automated, um, and heavily customized to actually suit the nuances of their business. So anyway, long-winded-

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm

Rebecca Moroney: ... answer there, but um, there's a space for it to play but you know what? I'm actually leaving it to the big dogs at the moment to play with that one. Um-

Kylie Davis: There's perfectly good wheels and they've already got clients, so why try to win them over, um, when I think your USP is not the CRM s- side? Although gentlemen, it's called a CRM because it's, stands for customers, not for addresses.

Rebecca Moroney: Exactly.

Kylie Davis: Not address relationship marketplace. It's a customer relationship marketplace. Maybe if you could look it up by people, it would work better. But look, that's just me.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah.

Kylie Davis: Um,

Rebecca Moroney: I agree.

Kylie Davis: I'm gonna, I'm gonna cop shit from Eddie, Simon and, um, David Bowie, I'm sure. Um-

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah

Kylie Davis: ... that's okay. Let me ask you a question. Are you happy with your current operational workflow? Are you really satisfied with printing, signing, scanning, and emailing contracts and then having to wait days for them to be signed and returned? Well, I didn't think so, and I have some good news. There is a better way. Dynamic Methods is the team behind leading real estate industry tech platforms such as FormsLive, REI FormsLive, and RealWorks. With a mission to make better happen, Dynamic Methods are dedicated to providing efficiency and productivity tools, boosting form technology to real estate agencies across Australia. Each month, 50,000 real estate professionals across eight and a half thousand agencies from every Australian state and territory use Dynamic Methods form technology, empowering more than 7.2 million transactions a year. Dynamic Methods is also proud to host quality integrations with some of the PropTech industry's most powerful technologies such as DocuSign, Secure Exchange, Equifax, and more, putting everything you need to get forms and contracts filled in, signed, verified, and exchanged into one easy platform. So if you're ready to ditch the pen and paper, make your agency look more efficient, head to dynamicmethods.com.au/partners to learn more. This episode is sponsored by EasyPay. EasyPay makes collecting PropTech payments easy. As one of Australia's leading subscription payment providers, EasyPay is helping real estate and PropTech businesses to improve rental collection rates, transform arrears management, and increase cash flow. Built for integration with a focus on partnerships, EasyPay's platform works seamlessly with your existing PropTech software, giving you access to industry-leading features that enable complex billing and settlement to support trustless business models. Discover the power of payment automation and leverage one of the first platforms to enable the pay to payment solution at easypay.com/proptech. For almost 16 years, Direct Connect has made moving easy for over 1.2 million renters and homeowners by arranging connections to a wide range of services from electricity and gas to internet and pay TV. With a national team of local account managers who are experts in the industry, Direct Connect are there to support your real estate business with competitive rewards for every successful connection, plus an industry-leading rewards program. The connection process is simple, and Direct Connect's always-on guarantee ensures your customers will be connected on the day they move in. Direct Connect offers a range of market-leading suppliers, and Direct Connect has now made it even easier than ever to send connections directly integrating with MRI Software's Property Tree. So in just a few clicks while processing a tenancy, you can send the connection details through and get your customers connected. To make the right connection and find out how Direct Connect can make moving easy for you and easy for your customers, visit agents.directconnect.com.au or call 1300-558-169. So what I'm really fascinated by your tech, Rebecca, and about the whole WayScape ecosystem is that it seems to me that you guys have actually one of the strongest contenders I've seen so far for how a, a, agentic AI is playing out in real estate. And the reason for that is that we have a very, um, limited understanding of what AI is in real estate, in that we think it's like Rosie the Robot or, um, or it's ChatGPT, or it's this one thing that does... makes the coffee and does everything, and we haven't really understood that it's both that hor- horizontal layer like you've got with Dee.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah.

Kylie Davis: And then I'm assuming that Dee's got her own assistants operating in each of the verticals.

Rebecca Moroney: Correct. Yeah.

Kylie Davis: Yeah, okay. So, yeah, so, so do you wanna just give me a little bit of an overview on the agentic AI? 'Cause you're making it look like it's Dee, but actually Dee's got her own team-

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah

Kylie Davis: ... I'm assuming, in each of those verticals.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. Look, I think, you know, the, um, at the heart of AI really is about the source of information.

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Moroney: Um, and what we've done is, is, you know, that single language model that we've, that I've spoken to that's really made this platform unique is around, you know, the depth of information that you feed it and how relevant it is. Um, like for example, plugging in, um, data sources and all that kind of stuff, but what can we do with those data sources? And so, you know, we've trained, um, the engine, um, and that's what I love about AI. Um, it can be whatever you want it to be, and even when it's in the hands of agents when they're using it, they can train that to be however they want it to be. They can even change the voice of Dee. They can change the language. They can do whatever they want. So I think, you know, what AI is providing is the flexibility to be whatever the agent needs it to be, but trust that it's solely invested in real estate as a knowledge base-

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm

Rebecca Moroney: ... um, and there's nothing else that's conflicting it. So it's not leveraging Google. It's, it's leveraging the information that we're feeding it with data and IP pertained to specifically real estate. So, um, you know, the cool thing about this is we've even spoken to so the platforms that we've integrated, which is over 20, um, and we're still integrating more as we're actually launching and being more out in the market. We're getting people come to us now expressing interest to integrate, which is fantastic. We can have our bot speak to their bot, and those bots can have conversations.

Kylie Davis: And then if they do something wrong, we have to smack the bots, but, but, uh

Rebecca Moroney: Exactly. Um-

Kylie Davis: But, but th- this is the way of the, this is, this is the way.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah, exactly. Like, so, um, like everyone, like a lot of this, the, the, the systems providers are implementing chat abilities, um-

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm

Rebecca Moroney: ... and bot abilities into their platforms, which is great. Um- And so, you know, what we can essentially have is our bots just communicate with each other to continually feed each other with information in real time rather than the likes of, for example, RP Data. You know, I think they do up- updates to their system every two to four weeks. That's not frequent enough. You know, we need real time updates, you know, and the systems are being updated in real time. That data's there, why can't we lift it? And it's all about the cost to ping it. So if we can use our bots to actually communicate in real time, it just means that's right at our fingertips much sooner. Um, so to me, that's the power of AI, the ability to really, uh, leverage real time information, um, empower us with real time information to impart that knowledge on our clients, um, and also, um, you know, get it to actually work for us.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. Awesome. And, and so, so the example that you gave before though, where basically Dee is, um, doing all of the things that you said. So, you know, um, making the... Re- responding to the inquiry, ma- setting up the appointment, um, making the call, sending out the pitch, all of that, all, all of that sort of work.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah.

Kylie Davis: What does the agent do in... What, what's left for the agent to do in that scenario?

Rebecca Moroney: So what's left for the agent is-

Kylie Davis: There's gonna be a lot of very well-caffeinated agents out there.

Rebecca Moroney: 100%. That's a lot of coffee.

Kylie Davis: I know.

Rebecca Moroney: Let's, yeah, let's see which, uh, you know, which coffee places increase in sales. Um, but look, what it actually enables them to do is actually focus more specifically on the client. So these are general tasks and admin things and property searching, um, which is quite cumbersome. So behind a desk, interrogating systems, pulling information out, putting proposals together. That's time they could be spend, uh, uh, spending addressing clients, um, doing open homes, addressing more clients, um, and stuff that's meaningful and, and makes an impact on the client. So it just, it just keeps them front and center-

Kylie Davis: Yeah

Rebecca Moroney: ... with clients more. Um, which I think is more important because, and again, I'm, I'm, I'm very pro everyone in the real estate industry, but if I look at the problem statements, you know, even me, um, as a buyer's agent, you know, I would make calls countlessly to real estate agents, and some of them wouldn't even get back to me. Um, and that's a, that's a prospect, you know, for them.

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Moroney: That's, that's something that they should be actively chasing down. And when I say, "Hey, I tried calling the other day, you didn't answer." "Oh, yeah, I didn't have time. I'm sorry." It's like, that isn't good enough. Um, and I'm sure they wouldn't be telling their vendors that they had 20 missed calls because they didn't have time to get to them, right?

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Rebecca Moroney: So, you know, if we can eliminate those types of issues that those agents are having, um, and having, for example, you know, your, instead of going to a voicemail, have it divert to bot, uh, to Dee, and, and Dee can be, "Hey, I'm Bec's personal assistant. Um, unfortunately, she couldn't answer the call, but how can I help you?" I mean, that's just amazing.

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Moroney: And then the transcript is available, it gets sent to the agent, um, or Dee sends a follow-up email and starts to action. So, you know, there's all these possibilities that can happen now and all of these problems out there solving. Um, so it's, yeah, it's pretty empowering.

Kylie Davis: Cool. And so what I'm hearing in all of these things that you've got Dee doing, like the different AI sitting behind that, is the, you know, the voice to s- the, or the text to voice and the, um-

Rebecca Moroney: Mm-hmm

Kylie Davis: ... uh, transcribing and appointment setting and, or chatbot-

Rebecca Moroney: Mm-hmm

Kylie Davis: ... stuff as well as, I guess, generating, r- report generating and things like that.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah.

Kylie Davis: But they're all, I guess, I'm assuming they're all individual pieces of AI tech that are-

Rebecca Moroney: Uh, no

Kylie Davis: ... working together

Rebecca Moroney: All with the, the one AI, it's just a process that we've, um, developed, um, really.

Kylie Davis: Okay.

Rebecca Moroney: So, you know, I guess think of the universe, um, and all the stars.

Kylie Davis: Yep.

Rebecca Moroney: Um, you know, that's, that's pretty much the makeup of our ecosystem. Um, because what sits behind, um, you know, every prompt, um, is an action.

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Moroney: Um, and we instructed it, you know, to, to act in a capacity. Um, we, we also have the ability... So that's straight out the box. You know, we've got the ability to be able to customize based on the nuances of how the agency wants to, or the agent wants to, you know, act and, and perform and react. Um, so, you know, also Dee is multilingual, so she can speak in whatever language, write in whatever language. Um, and, you know, she can als- also transcribe, you know, in, in other languages that you want her to as well. I had one of the agents in the Wayfinder business actually say, "I'm South African, can I have a South African, um-... bot-like voice?" And I just said, "Yeah, sure. By all means." You know, so, you know-

Kylie Davis: She does accents. She does accents.

Rebecca Moroney: Exactly.

Kylie Davis: That's what you're telling us.

Rebecca Moroney: She's whatever you want her to be.

Kylie Davis: I wanna hear the, I wanna hear the Scottish Dee. That'd be awesome.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. Oh, that would be cool. Exactly.

Kylie Davis: What I wanted to ask you about Dee, because one of the big issues around AI at the moment is the whole trust and transparency, and I know that, okay, so Dee's not going out to the universe. She's only staying inside your ecosystem, so sh- you know the information that she's pulling.

Rebecca Moroney: Mm-hmm.

Kylie Davis: But what's your... What, what does good practice look like for an agency using Wastescape around how often should they be checking in? Like, you know, we, we, we hear things like, you know, um, context rot and, you know, hallucinating AI when they start to head off on little tangents and things like that.

Rebecca Moroney: Exactly. Yeah.

Kylie Davis: Um, I think content rot's my favorite. Um, but anyway, um, what, what, how do you... What's your advice for how you man- what good practice around managing AI looks like? Um, especially for an agency using Wastescape.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. Look, first of all, I think from a privacy perspective- You know, every client will have their own tenancy, um, which means that it's their own four walls. Um-

Kylie Davis: Mm

Rebecca Moroney: ... and of course, it's cloud-based, um, 'cause that's just the way you go about things. Um, and you know, so the sensitivity, privacy element is completely locked down, which is fantastic. Um, the biggest question we get asked is exactly that question. Um, and you know, if I feed it with my agency information, is that available to others? Why? Because that's what ChatGPT does.

Kylie Davis: Mm. Yeah.

Rebecca Moroney: Everything that you've said is now available to the world. Um, but no, um, given that single language model and that single tenancy, uh, provisioning, um, you know, that takes away that problem. But, you know, it is a really good point. I like that, that rot word as well. That's really interesting. Um, but you know, there is such a thing about, you know, feeding it too much information. Um, and I think the one thing to, you know, to, to keep in mind is, is, you know, treat this like it's your assistant. Um, and enable it to get to know you. Don't sit there and just do a massive dump and dump your resume in and put your LinkedIn, you know, thing in and just go, "Read this and get to know me." Get, let it get to know you over time and your behaviors because the machine's that smart enough to interpret things itself. Um, and so take the time, um, for it just to get to know you over time. Um, and that way you won't overload it. Um, it'll organically, you know, just learn your behaviors, how you speak, um, and all of the above, um, naturally.

Kylie Davis: Okay. And so in the example that you gave before where, um, where Dee is pulling together all the information and making appointments and sending it out and things like that, what does good practice look like around making sure that she's not- she hasn't sort of misinterpreted something or, or gone off on a tangent and decided that the market in Kellyville has grown by 54% when actually like something else has happened or it's just been growing 5.4%, but she's, you know, hallucinated statistics or things like that. How, what, what kind of, um-

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah

Kylie Davis: ... yeah, what kind of sa- guardrails do you put a- put around? Like, w- would it be a monthly check-in or a quarterly check-in or, um... Because in the same way that if you had an, if you had a staff member acting as your assistant, you'd probably be sitting down having a coffee with them and just reviewing their work or checking in on how they're going. How do you check in on Dee?

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. We have a weekly, I guess, check-in. Um, and the reason why is because we've got so many integrations, so it's important to understand how they're working. We're testing it out. There's constant, um, you know, sandboxing, um, in relation to a lot of the different elements. Um, and we're constantly-

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm

Rebecca Moroney: ... testing it out with different questions and techniques and so on. So, um, we've been quite prescriptive when it comes to actions that big, that are called out, and especially when it come... So for example, responses, um, when you ask it to do something, you know, she'll respond to you with exactly what she's gonna do. Um, and, and you'll know what she's going to perform, so there's not gonna be any surprises. The second thing around data quality, um, you know, our sources for that data are highly accurate and based on state government systems. So we know when we, we've trained Dee to not interpret but to come with the facts. Um-

Kylie Davis: Yeah

Rebecca Moroney: ... and if there's any level of kind of... Like what we're not doing, and we do leverage the platforms to provide as well with it. So we've got... So let's look at Htag. Htag, um, is, uh, I guess a hotspot, if you look at the buyer's agent lens. Um, it's a hot-

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm

Rebecca Moroney: ... hot tool system. And, um, the owner there has built certain level of analytics around that to determine what's hot and, you know, um, the bursary scoring and all these different elements. We're, Dee's not that, right? So what she's not gonna do is, uh, if you say to her, "I want you to, um, tell me which suburbs will be primary investment opportunities in the next 15 years," she's not gonna do that because there's a level of risk around that. What she'll come to you, um, with is facts around, um, how suburbs have performed well over time and what the, you know, what the indications might be based on certain, um, elements, and those are the data points that we've fed her with. So yeah, it's, it is, it is a sensitive one. It's a risky one. Um, and we don't wanna leave all our eggs in the basket of an AI to depict how we advise our clients. Um, but we're confident that the data that we've got there will, um, help to at least advise agents for them to be able to then go, "Okay, well, um, here's how I can, you know, impart that knowledge on my clients, and I'm confident with that information."

Kylie Davis: But Dee is, um, gonna prioritize facts over people-pleasing? 'Cause we're hearing a lot more about AI that's, get, starts to get, hallucinate, hallucinate over people-pleasing, so wanting to stay engaged with you.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. We've, we've really coached and trained Dee not to be like that.

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Rebecca Moroney: I mean, um, the tone's different in the sense of, "Hi," you know, and, and having a really happy...

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Rebecca Moroney: In fact, um, you know, we're, we have been so prescriptive with Dee. Even we've used a specific voice, um, and recorded this voice, uh, over the past couple of months in calls she makes because she's got the most beautiful, calming voice. So we haven't actually generated this by any tech or code. This is a real voice that we're using, um, and we've trained Dee to use. But, um, not to be too much. So, like, for example, you know, I've been telling people that when we, when you have Dee integrated in your CRM or even if we're integrating, you know, with Rex or whatever that might be, her job, when she's making, before she makes a call, is to actually go through the client's record in, in your system that you've built up over time, read through all the conversations and activity that's been had, and have an intelligent conversation with the client when they get on there to build a rapport. So for example, "Hey, you know, Bob, you know, this is, uh, Dee from Wayfinder. I'm just calling. We spoke to you a little while ago. You said that you were potentially looking at, at buying a property, but you know, I understand, you know, you're busy with your job and, you know, with three kids as well. Must be pretty challenging." So it's kind of that kind of conversation that we've trained her to have, um, and a really fine line between pushing, um, and like I, I, I've actually been doing a lot of feeding myself with it and going, "No- You know, actually, I'm not interested. Just get off the phone.

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Rebecca Moroney: And so she'll be like, "Oh, I understand how you feel. Um, look, here's our number. Uh, I'll send you an email. If you wanna get in touch with us and recover the conversation, please, please feel free to do that." So there's a lot of prompts that we've put in there to go, "Okay, enough's enough. Shut up." Initially.

Kylie Davis: And is she transparent about being a, an AI assistant?

Rebecca Moroney: Yes, absolutely.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. Perfect. Okay.

Rebecca Moroney: We call that out, um, first, first in. So-

Kylie Davis: Yeah

Rebecca Moroney: ... I mean, I'd have to say, she can fool you. Um, you know, some people would probably not even think she's a bot because she's... she sounds very, very real. Um, but yeah, we call that out and make it very transparent.

Kylie Davis: Cool, cool. Well, um, so Becca, what's... So how big are you guys? How long have you been in market for now? 'Cause I know you are a very early stage startup. Um, but-

Rebecca Moroney: Mm

Kylie Davis: ... and, but how... Tell us about the, uh, how much market share you've got or whatever you can tell us in that space.

Rebecca Moroney: Right. So the market share is endless. Um-

Kylie Davis: Yes.

Rebecca Moroney: ... 'cause no one else is playing in there with us, which is fantastic.

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Rebecca Moroney: So, um, we're not there yet, but, um, we've just launched to market. So we've, we've been consistent for, um, since January and, um, really, really fast-built, uh, bootstrapped. Um, we don't have any investors. We're solely as owners, um, invested in this. We're, we're two owners. Um, and so this is our own money. Um, and can I just say, you know, that's one of the benefits of what we're doing here. There's a lot of people talking about AI, but they're talking about it and showing concepts, um, on PowerPoints and so on. So we are truly the first who's actually built the ecosystem, and we will call for investors in due course to build out the roadmap. Um, but we've started selling as of this week. Um, so-

Kylie Davis: Oh, congratulations.

Rebecca Moroney: Thank you. So we have quite a large, um, uh, inquiry base, which is fantastic, and we're, we're hitting that now. We did do some, um, pre-work coming from, um, AREC with, um, an agency who has over 150 locations across the country, a real estate agency where we're building, um, Dee into their ecosystem and helping with lead generation, um, you know, generating leads to warm to hot, and then passing them on to agents. So there has been some, um, opportunities that we've been working with in the early stages, and they have been keen to work with us as on the basis that they are the first, which is quite a humbling experience, to be honest. Um, so yeah. Look, uh, I anticipate when you... w- we potentially touch base in another few months' time, maybe if I'm lucky enough to come back on the podcast, I can talk to, you know, the success that we've had in, in growth, um, because the trajectory looks very opportunistic.

Kylie Davis: Fantastic. Fantastic. And so, um, what... Now, like so you're not quite at launch. You're about to launch this week. It's... And, and so you've been sort of doing this for, I guess, around six, six or seven months. What's something that you wish you had, like with the... you know, now that you wish you knew back in January or even when you, um, left your old job?

Rebecca Moroney: Wow, that's a really good question. Um, maybe now I think, you know, uh, what I, what I would've liked to have done was, you know, build out the proof case for the real estate agents, you know, at the same time as the buyer's agents because I think a lot of people have assumed that this is a buyer's agent specific, um, ecosystem. And so we've had to kind of backtrack a little and explain. Um, but I think, you know, a little bit more time spent on that REA proof case, um, and, you know, releasing both, um, powers at, at the one time would've been the most, uh, the best approach or that we should have taken. Um, but in hindsight, I think we've learned along the way and, you know, we've been able to get these, you know, these agencies who have wanted to work with us in that kind of, um, test bunny phase, if you wanna call it. So we've been lucky at the same time 'cause I don't think we would've been able to find out the length of information that we have without it. Um, but yeah. Look, I, I think, um, you know, to me, just developing invaluable partnerships, relationships, um, is key to all of this. So I'll continue to harness that and welcome anyone who, who wants to know more, um, not just B2B or, or clients. It's about, you know, people interested in how AI can truly make a mark on really the world.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And, and so h- where do you... Like, so Wayscape is very clearly AI in, in the real estate space. Where do you see us go? I'm not even gonna say five years 'cause I feel like that's in, too far in the future, and we'll never... Like, the way that, the speed that it's moving at.

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah.

Kylie Davis: But where do you think we're gonna be in the next couple of years-

Rebecca Moroney: Oh, well-

Kylie Davis: ... with AI in real estate?

Rebecca Moroney: Uh, I think absolutely, um, you know, it's like the mobile phone, right? I was just saying this the other day. You know, the apples were imposed on us, right? We had no choice but to jump on the bandwagon, and it just took over us. And if we weren't adopters, then you missed out, right? You just don't get a phone because then that goes. So what we'll find in a few years' time is, is that AI will be a day-to-day, um, and part of life, um, where everyone will be leveraging it to a capacity. Um, and soon manual ways of doing things and filling in forms and all that kind of stuff, it'll be a thing of the past, just like kind of writing is for me. My gosh, my writing is horrible, um, because I just don't write anymore. So, you know, I really feel that we're gonna, we're gonna move at a very rapid pace, for sure.

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm. Mm. Well, Rebecca, it's been absolutely awesome learning about Wayscape and, um, being, I guess, introduced to Dee. Like, well done on, um, congratulations on launching this week. Well, um-

Rebecca Moroney: Yeah. Thank you

Kylie Davis: ... and looking forward to, yeah, looking forward to hearing about your success as you go on.

Rebecca Moroney: Oh, thank you, Kylie. It's been a pleasure. I love chatting about this stuff. So passionate about it. Thank you so much for having me.

Kylie Davis: So what do you think about Wayscape? There is a lot of hype out there at the moment about AI in real estate, especially around agentic AI. We really are living in the Wild West times of PropTech, and with the change happening so quickly, it's wilder than any West we have seen before So I'm really impressed with the structure and the thoughtfulness that WasteScape are bringing to this model, especially for a startup proptech. Their five pillars model and the effort that Rebecca's gone into around the trust and transparency piece, and the rigor of the testing that she's introduced to reduce the risk of content rot and AI hallucinations. This is all mindful and intentional work, and that shows the maturity of thinking and product development, and that's not always common in new startups, so well done. AI is so much more than just using ChatGPT to write property descriptions, emails, or social media, and lead delivery. As an industry, we have a role in proptech to help our clients deepen their understanding and knowledge of the space, not just around what the technology can do for them, but how they need to practice it safely and the decisions that they need to make to feel confident and understand the levels of risk involved. So look, well done, WasteScape. Congratulations again on your PropTech Award this year, and I'm looking forward to hearing a lot more about your successes in the future. Now, just before we go, are you a fast-growing proptech looking to take a new product to market, position yourself strongly through unique thought leadership and research, or are you struggling to wrangle all the strategic and tactical pieces of marketing so that they convert into real sales? Then I, Kylie Davis, and the PropTech Guru team would love to help. PropTech Guru, which is the consulting business I run with my husband, former Gartner director and media executive Mark Hollins, specializes in a service called Scalable CMO. Most proptechs have a marketing team in place, and many of them are just one or two young marketers struggling to do all the things. But with Scalable CMO, you get the perfect mix of top-level executive thinking, plus affordable and tactical executions to support, scale, and enhance your current team. To kick off, we audit your existing marketing with an overlay of where you need to get to, and we'll identify what's working and fit for purpose and what you need to do to hit your number. And then we create a strategic plan and the cost of delivery of the work required from digital marketing, CRM and automation management, content, media, social media, sales structure, KPIs, and all the accountabilities. Work is executed by our team in the Philippines to ensure it's affordable, and it's overseen by Mark and I here in Australia to deliver accuracy, reliability, and domain expertise. So our goal is to get you up and running, in market, and firing on all cylinders, and make ourselves ideally redundant in around 18 months because we get it. No one wants to work forever with a consultant. You want marketing and positioning to get results, and we want to show you how. So if this sounds like something that could work for your proptech, reach out. Email me at kylie@proptechguru.com.au or connect up on LinkedIn. Now, if you have enjoyed this episode of the PropTech Podcast, I would love you to tell all your friends or drop me a line either via email or LinkedIn or on our Facebook page. And you can follow this podcast on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor, and Apple iTunes, and anywhere good podcasts are heard. I would like to thank my podcast producer, the fabulous Charlie Hollins, podcast website editors, Jill Escudero and Shira Sexsen, and our sponsors, HID, digital identification solutions for your building; Direct Connect, making moving easy; Dynamic Methods, the name behind FormsLive, REI FormsLive, and Realworks; Easy Pay, making collecting payments easy for proptechs; and the PropTech Association Australia, Australia's industry body which is supporting the flourishing proptech community. Now, if you're an Australian or New Zealand proptech who would like to be on the show, please drop me a line via LinkedIn or email kylie@proptechassociation.com.au. Thanks so much, everyone. Until next time, keep on propteching.