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Productive.ai, a tech startup that uses artificial intelligence to enhance phone calls, was named the winner of the annual “Pitch Battle” on Wednesday at the National Association of REALTORS®’ Innovation, Opportunity & Investment Summit in Miami.
Designed to enhance productivity, the Productive.ai platform pulls real-time information from phone conversations and provides automatic notes, summaries, tasks, events and CRM logging. As the Pitch Battle winner, the company will be awarded $15,000 and an expo booth at NAR NXT, The REALTOR® Experience, in Anaheim, Calif., in November.
“In this year’s Pitch Battle, we once again saw the remarkable caliber of proptech ideas shaping the future of real estate,” NAR CEO Bob Goldberg said 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.”
Eleven startups in the real estate technology space competed in the Pitch Battle, which was hosted by Second Century Ventures, NAR’s strategic investment arm. Each brought solutions for different parts of the real estate business, from alternative financing to lead generation, property search, listing presentations and marketing. In the winning pitch, Joseph Wihbey, chief operations officer at Productive.ai, simulated a phone call with a potential client while the platform processed the conversation in real time and began performing tasks, such as searching for available properties.
“NAR’s iOi Summit was such an important event on our team’s radar,” Wihbey said. “We truly wanted to take the stage and tell the story of how we are making an impact in the lives of real estate professionals. Our REACH Canada leaders gave us the confidence to get on that stage, have fun and truly shake the foundation of real estate.”
NAR’s REACH tech accelerator program supports promising new real estate technologies with funding and professional mentorship and guidance.
Attendees at the iOi Summit also had a chance to pick their favorite Pitch Battle competitor. ListAssist, an AI tool that integrates with brokerage websites and real estate portals, was named the Crowd Favorite by a vote of in-person and virtual attendees. The generative AI technology can produce listing summaries, marketing scripts, social media posts, local area descriptions and more in a matter of minutes.
Productive.ai and ListAssist both demonstrated a commitment to enhancing the user experience in the real estate profession. In today’s fast-paced world, technology that saves time and boosts productivity is invaluable. These solutions proved to be not only innovative but also practical and user centric.
More Than a Competition
The Pitch Battle is the signature event at the iOi Summit, a conference that brings together real estate pros, technology developers and investors to chart the future of industry tools. The battle serves as a platform for young, forward-thinking companies to showcase their innovative solutions to the most pressing challenges in the real estate industry. Contestants are challenged not only to know their product inside and out but also to explain its value proposition succinctly.
Ines Hegedus-Garcia, executive vice president at Avanti Way Realty in Doral, Fla., encapsulated the spirit of the competition: “There’s nothing like seeing these young and innovative companies take the stage, representing various corners of the real estate industry and different countries. It’s like watching the industry’s heartbeat come alive. I can’t help but be inspired by the fusion of ideas and technologies that promise to shape the future of real estate in ways we’ve never imagined.”
The Pitch Battle showcased how emerging technologies and innovation continually improve the real estate profession, a sentiment echoed by Kenya Burrell-VanWormer, broker-owner of KBurrell Properties in Houston. “The Pitch Battle always delivers,” she said. “Technology will continue to drive innovation in our industry. This program provides invaluable insights into how we remain relevant and productive.”
REALTOR® Magazine staff contributed to this article.
