Zonda and NewHomeSource kicked off day one of the Accelerate Summit in Park City, Utah, with AI very much the topic of the day. Here are five takeaways from the presentations and panel discussions:
- 2027 forecast: More of the same, with some reasons for optimism. Zonda and NewHomeSource chief economist Ali Wolf forecasts that 2027 will bring more of the same challenges as 2026: staying in a “higher for longer” interest rate environment, starts and closings mirroring 2026 numbers, lower prices, and increased incentives. There are also reasons for optimism. Builders are excited about redesigning their products and strategies to better align with today’s home buyer, and they’re feeling positive about pent up demand.
- AI will reinvent virtually everything. CoStar Group founder and CEO Andy Florance wowed the audience with a live demo of the Homes.com AI tool using queries and conversations to conduct home research. The results were dramatic and provided a glimpse of the significant impact that AI will have on the industry. Florance said the explosion of technology in the new-home space “will allow the home buyer to visualize what doesn’t exist today, and that’s super exciting.”
- Forty-five percent of prospective buyers have used AI to help with buying a home. Users are bypassing traditional search by “offloading their research” to AI, but they still want information to be validated by reliable human sources, such as independent review platforms like TrustBuilder. “People are ‘using AI to learn’ but ‘humans to believe,’ so traditional marketing is still very important,” says Tom LeBaron, vice president of performance marketing and growth at NewHomeSource. And having a robust PR strategy is necessary to ensure your message is being amplified to build a strong digital footprint.
- What marketing leaders are prioritizing now. AI was the prevalent theme in a panel discussion led by Karyn Bonder, senior vice president of business development at Zonda. The panelists agreed that offering a self-service approach for users builds trust and “meets customers where they are.” Rather than replacing salespeople, AI will simply build a bridge for customers to cross when they’re ready for human interaction. And the human element is key. Indeed, using products such as Rilla and Siro to record sales calls with customers is providing marketing teams with more data than ever before, helping them evolve messaging and strategy to better reflect the voice of the customer.
- Connecting the dots with creativity. Creativity is the most undervalued attribute of leadership, according to Marissa Thalberg, Forbes CMO Hall of Fame marketer. In her presentation on Leading with Creativity, Thalberg said, “Great leaders draw together the dots that others do not see and connect them.” She also cited AI as a boon to creativity since it allows teams to spend less time on lower value marketing tasks and more time on big creative initiatives.
