Let an automated assistant answer factual questions about the property and the process, capture the enquiry, and book a time — and stop there. In Ontario, giving advice or an opinion to someone who has not signed an agreement is how an implied representation agreement is created, and that agreement binds the brokerage rather than just the agent. B.C.’s regulator adds a transparency duty on top: if a chatbot stands in for you while you are unavailable, tell your client.
Key takeaways
After-hours enquiries are worth answering because that is when people look at houses. The risk is not that a bot says something rude; it is that a bot is helpful in a way a regulator treats as providing services. The whole design problem is drawing a line the software cannot cross, and then telling people the software is there.
RECO recognises exactly two exceptions to what creates an implied representation agreement. The first is that an agent may provide general information to a person relating to the business of trading in real estate. The bulletin’s own examples read like a specification for a listing chatbot: a consumer who calls about a listing and asks questions that require factual answers — number of bedrooms, square footage, when it was built — is being provided information, as is a visitor handed a feature sheet at an open house, or an audience at a talk asking general questions.
The second exception is providing assistance, and it is unavailable to an unattended bot in most cases, because it applies only as a service to, or incidental to a service to, the agent’s own client, and without encouraging the other person to rely on the agent’s skill or judgment.
The bulletin then names what crosses the line: exchanging confidential information, giving advice related to a trade, providing services, acting in a way that requires the use of judgment on which a buyer or seller might rely, communicating with third parties on their behalf, or negotiating. It also warns that when it stops being a casual or informal exchange of information — where a buyer begins to share confidential information, or you start to offer advice — caution is required. A conversational interface is very good at drifting across exactly that boundary, because being agreeable is what it optimises for.
BCFSA’s guideline gives licensees a direct instruction that most brokerages have not implemented: you should communicate to clients and the public when AI tools are being utilized and explain their potential impacts and limitations to maintain transparency — for example, if you use an AI chatbot or interface when you are unavailable, you should inform your client of the situation. It also holds that before publishing any AI generated content, you should review and validate the results to detect and correct inaccuracies, and that licensees remain accountable for the accuracy of any real estate advertising they publish or other representations they make.
CREA reaches the same conclusion nationally: use of AI must be guided by transparency, accuracy and accountability, and consumers and REALTORS® should clearly understand when AI is materially influencing information, communications or representations. A one-line disclosure at the top of the chat window is a small price for both.
RECO’s online advertising bulletin applies to whatever the widget is embedded in. Advertising requirements apply to websites and social media just as to any other medium; whether a site features the whole brokerage, a team or one agent, these websites are all brokerage websites, and one of the commonest complaints RECO receives is that the brokerage name is not clearly and prominently identified, which misleads the public by suggesting the team is registered to trade in real estate.
Using someone else’s technology does not move the obligation. Where a site is managed or operated by a third party and the brokerage has no control over how quickly information is updated, the brokerage or agent must ensure the operator can process change requests promptly, and the bulletin states plainly that using a third party does not exempt the brokerage or agent from ensuring the currency and accuracy of the information they share. If the bot answers from a stale listing feed, that is your inaccuracy.
Some of the people typing at midnight have no agent, and TRESA treats them specially. Before providing any assistance to a self-represented party, an agent must provide the RECO Information and Disclosure to Self-represented Party form along with the RECO Information Guide, and make best efforts to obtain an acknowledgement. Agents are prohibited from providing services, opinions or advice to a self-represented party in respect of a trade, including an opinion or advice on the price, terms or clauses to include in an offer.
The bulletin also requires four things to be communicated clearly, including that any information, including confidential information, the self-represented party shares will be shared with the agent’s client. An unattended assistant cannot run that conversation. What it can do is recognise the signal — “I don’t have an agent”, “can you write my offer” — and escalate rather than help.
A scope that holds overnight
Allowed: facts from the listing sheet, publicly available process explanations, hours, directions, booking a viewing, taking a message.
Blocked: value opinions, offer strategy, comments on the seller, comparisons framed as recommendations, anything about a competing offer.
Escalate on: “I don’t have an agent”, “my agent is...”, anything financial, anything about a defect, anything the answer is not in the sheet.
Always visible: that this is an automated assistant, the registered brokerage name, and how to reach a person.
Whatever the bot collects lands in a record. PIPEDA’s principles require identifying the purposes for which personal information is collected, obtaining consent, limiting collection to what is necessary, and safeguarding it, and the Privacy Commissioner’s consent guidance says people must be told what personal information is being collected and with which parties it is being shared, with third parties enumerated as specifically as possible. If the transcript is processed by a vendor’s model, that vendor is one of those parties.
BCFSA’s warning applies to the transcript store as much as to a prompt box: unless you are certain that an AI tool does not store or utilize user data, you should avoid entering any confidential or personal information into it. Our sister firm covers what an Ontario business’s privacy policy has to say and the reporting obligation if that store is breached.
The following is illustrative — a composite of how the workflow is usually assembled, not a measured result.
A brokerage adds an assistant to its listing pages. Its knowledge is a nightly export of its own listings and a short document of process explanations written by the broker of record. It is not connected to the CRM, so it cannot read anything about another client. The first line of every conversation identifies it as an automated assistant of the named registered brokerage and offers a phone number.
A visitor asks the lot size and the age of the roof. Both are on the sheet, so both are answered, with the source line “from the listing information”. They then ask whether they should offer over asking. The assistant does not answer; it says that is a conversation for a registered agent, offers three times, and takes contact details. A third question mentions that they have no agent and want help writing an offer. That triggers escalation with a flag, so the agent who calls in the morning knows to start with the Information Guide and the self-represented party form.
Every conversation is written to a log the brokerage owns, retained for a stated period, with the privacy notice linked in the widget. Once a month the broker of record reads twenty transcripts at random to see where the assistant drifted.
Stating publicly listed facts about another brokerage’s listing is information. Comparing them in a way that steers the buyer is an opinion, and comparative claims in advertising must also be truthful and supported by verifiable facts. Answer the fact, decline the comparison.
In B.C., BCFSA’s guideline says you should inform your client where an AI chatbot is used because you are unavailable, and CREA’s national position is that consumers should clearly understand when AI is materially influencing communications. Beyond the regulatory expectation, an undisclosed bot that is later found to have said something wrong is a much worse story than a disclosed one.
It is your inaccuracy. BCFSA holds licensees accountable for the accuracy of advertising and representations regardless of what produced them, and CREA states that a REALTOR® is responsible for inaccurate information generated by AI and should independently verify before relying on it. This is the argument for keeping the assistant tied to a single authoritative source rather than letting it answer from general knowledge.
For what happens once the enquiry reaches a person, see following up with real estate leads faster. For the meeting that follows, see preparing a buyer consultation.
A 30-minute call is enough to tell you whether AI pays for itself here.
