Zillow CEO: ‘More than half of homebuyers cry during the process.’ AI can fix that

Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman shares how the housing affordability crisis has flipped the home-buying process—and how AI is going to transform it again. When Zillow launched 20 years ago, the home-buying process happened almost entirely offline. The company’s digital listings, combined with its innovative “Zestimate”—an estimate of a home’s value, based on the kind of data typically only available to real estate professionals—marked a turning point for the housing market. Zestimates weren’t exact representations of value, but they put power back in the hands of prospective buyers (to sellers’ and agents’ chagrin). Their near-instant popularity was an early “do your research” internet moment.