Zillow's ChatGPT Plug-In: Your New AI House-Hunting Assistant Or Just Another Chatty Cathy?

Zillow Group, Inc ZG, which runs a popular real estate website in the U.S., has announced a new chatGPT plug-in that promises to streamline the house-hunting process for users. 

What Happened: Zillow’s new house-hunting tool, a chatGPT plug-in, allows users to search for properties through a simple chat interface with artificial intelligence. 

People who have the plug-in enabled can tell OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot about their desired property, including location, price and bedroom count. Afterward, chatGPT will quickly scan Zillow’s database to provide suitable options. 

See Also: Samsung Reportedly Bans OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Bard, Bing AI: What Are They Afraid Of?

The Zillow chatGPT plug-in is currently in its Alpha phase and only available for a few users. However, the company plans to offer broader access to the plug-in. 

“Generative AI is changing the way people search for information,” said David Beitel, CTO of Zillow. He added, “We understand its immense potential and we look forward to developing more tech innovations with OpenAI technology in the future.”

At this point, it is unclear why people would want to input information such as location, price and the number of bedrooms they want into the Zillow chatGPT plug-in rather than directly entering it into the website. The company may shed more light on the matter during the beta phase. 

Why It’s Important: Since OpenAI’s chatGPT ignited a battle amongst big tech players, several plug-ins by the Sam Altman-led company and third-party developers have surfaced. 

In March earlier this year, OpenAI launched two plug-ins: a web browser and a code interpreter. The former makes it useful for retrieving information by browsing content from the web, while the latter is ideal for solving mathematical problems. 

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