This report is available exclusively to subscribers of Inman Intel, a data and research arm of Inman offering deep insights and market intelligence on the business of residential real estate and proptech. Subscribe today.
In a chaotic week at the National Association of Realtors’ technology conference, Joseph Wihbey made sure his company stood out from the crowd and his gamble paid off: Productive.ai won the trade group’s “Pitch Battle” and is taking home a $15,000 cash prize.
Productive.ai is a call assistant powered by artificial intelligence that records and transcribes phone calls; automatically summarizes phone conversations; creates notes, tasks, and calendar events based on those conversations; and logs information from the call into a customer relationship management system.
Another AI-enhanced business, ListAssist, won the “Crowd Favorite” award, garnering the most votes from attendees both in-person and virtual. ListAssist integrates with brokerage websites and portals, qualifies leads and matches buyers to the properties that best line up with what they’re looking for.
“In this year’s Pitch Battle, we once again saw the remarkable caliber of proptech ideas shaping the future of real estate,” said NAR CEO Bob Goldberg in a statement.
“Innovation happening at Productive.ai embodies the forward momentum we champion at the iOi Summit and every day in the work NAR does on behalf of consumers and real estate professionals. I extend my warm congratulations to them for a well-deserved win.”
NAR’s for-profit investment subsidiary Second Century Ventures hosted the contest at the 1.5-million-member trade group’s fifth annual Innovation, Opportunity & Investment (iOi) Summit, which took place Aug. 29 and 30 in Miami. The contest, which was also live-streamed, went on mostly as planned despite a backdrop of indignation from members over sexual harassment allegations that surfaced over the weekend.
Productive.ai was one of 11 startups to compete in the contest. A twelfth candidate, corporate lactation services startup Work & Mother, was scheduled to participate, but ultimately did not. Work & Mother’s CEO, Abbey Donnell, did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls seeking comment.
Wihbey, Productive.ai’s COO and head of product, took a different approach than every other contestant in his pitch: he simulated a phone call with a potential client, Gabby Diaz, in which the Productive.ai platform processed the call in real-time, searched for available properties and scheduled a meeting.
Joseph Wihbey from Productive.ai at NAR’s iOi Summit Pitch Battle in Miami, August 2023
“Curate an email based on my conversation,” Wihbey told Cavi, Productive.ai’s soon-to-be-released AI voice assistant, during the pitch. “Pull some comparable listings from the MLS and source a local humane society. I’d like to make a donation donation for Gabby in [her dog] Rocky’s name.’ Cavi will run off do the research, curate the email and when I’m ready, I can review it and press Send.
“Productive does it all. You get an AI summary after every conversation, giving you limitless memory and all those tasks automatically go into your calendar, so you never miss an opportunity again.”
After Wihbey’s pitch, one of the contest’s judges, Marki Lemons-Ryhal, remarked, “I don’t even like talking on the phone, but this makes me want to talk on the phone,” prompting laughter from attendees.
Wihbey told the judges Productive can save agents up to 20 hours per week, integrates with more than 20 CRMs, and costs the average user between $20 and $30 per month.
In addition to the cash prize, as the contest’s winner, San Mateo, California-based Productive.ai will get a booth at NAR NXT, NAR’s annual conference in November, and will present the next Pitch Battle winner at next year’s iOi Summit.
Productive.ai is the first NAR Pitch Battle winner not to focus on homeseller services. Last year’s winner was presale home renovation startup Revive. Before that, furniture rental startup Feather won. Revive competitor Curbio won in 2019 and on-demand photo-editing service BoxBrownie won in 2018. All winners so far including Productive.ai have been participants in NAR’s REACH tech accelerator.
