Eklund-Gomes team launches “spunky” AI assistant

Like a queen atop her throne, the new face of Eklund-Gomes peered down at the revelers at a party thrown Wednesday evening by the Douglas Elliman team. 

Posters of her likeness — a woman’s face with sharp cheekbones and flawless skin worthy of a Sephora ad — adorned both ends of the commercial space on West 28th Street.

“Number one, I think she’s really beautiful,” co-founder John Gomes said of the night’s honored guest, called Maya. “I say, if you took all the members of the Eklund-Gomes team, and we had a big orgy one night, Maya would be born.”

But Maya wasn’t among the 500 agents, clients and friends invited to celebrate what co-founder Fredrik Eklund called the “rebirth” of the nearly two-decade old megateam. 

In fact, Maya’s not a person at all. 

She’s an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot featured on the team’s new website — and the culmination of almost two years of development backed by a hefty seven-figure investment.

The team launched their new website, with design and development spearheaded by Purlin and Williams New York, this week with Maya as the star of the new page. 

“Websites are a little out of vogue. Everything’s about social,” David Williams, founder of Williams New York, said. “To debut a website in this day and age was a tall order.”

But the addition places the team in line with other residential players who have rolled out AI-powered real estate tools this year. Marketproof in May launched an AI assistant tool powered by ChatGPT, on the heels of similar announcements from Zillow and Redfin. 

Maya, who the team claims is “the first AI real estate personality,” has her own tab where users can type questions into a chat box and rate her responses with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. 

“AI aren’t going to be showing us apartments, but at two o’clock in the morning, if someone who lives in another time zone is on the Eklund-Gomes website, and they want to know about apartments in Tribeca between $5 and $10 million, they can be talking to Maya,” Gomes said.

Her responses are integrated with other features on the website. Ask her about two-bedroom condo listings under $5 million on the Upper West Side, and she’ll curate a list from all those available on the Eklund-Gomes website with the option to view on a separate tab. 

Though her interface is similar to ChatGPT, Eklund and Gomes insist she’s distinct from other virtual assistants and chatbots on the market, with a tone Eklund described as “spunky” and “spicy.” 

“She is a genius. She never sleeps. She never eats. She works 24/7. She knows arguably more than some of the real estate agents in here,” Eklund said. 

Anyone can sign up to use Maya. Eklund and Gomes actually encourage it, as the more people interact with her, the more she’ll learn and improve her responses. 

On the back end, the team is also mining Maya’s conversations for data that they’re betting will generate leads and provide information to help tailor their client interactions and messaging. 

The team is already planning a second phase for Maya, which will allow her to speak to users with a Swedish accent.

The new website also allows visitors to like listings, similar to a social media post, and will create featured posts such as “the most liked listings this week” based on user interactions. 

The website rollout coincides with the launch of the Eklund-Gomes team’s new division dedicated to jets and yachts, an added service the group is providing clients through partnership with Kitson Yachts and The Jet Business.

In addition to generating another income stream, the team said featuring jets and yachts on the website will prompt users to stay on the website to browse the other offerings.

“We wanted our website to be a creative, fun experience,” Gomes said, comparing the user experience to clicking through a digital magazine. “We designed this to be sticky. We want people to come and stay on the site.”

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