There was only standing room left by the time the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios began to speak. But he had a clear message for real estate agents and brokers: Start using AI now.
Kratsios’ comments came during the Regulatory Issues Forum: AI Innovation, Real Estate and Regulation: A Candid Discussion about AI Regulation at the National Association of Realtors’ 2026 Legislative Meetings in Washington, D.C. The forum took place Monday and highlighted how important AI and regulation are to Realtors.
Kratsios, who serves as President Trump’s chief science and technology advisor, told the crowd at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center that AI tools capable of automating back-office work, streamlining client communications and sharpening market knowledge are already available — and that agents who delay adoption risk falling behind in what he called a “K-shaped economy” splitting businesses into two camps: those growing dramatically and those flattening out.
“There is no better time in history to be a small business owner than today,” Kratsios told the crowd. “There is no more powerful tool that has ever been created in the history of the world that a small business can use and wield for its own benefit.”
Kratsios spoke during a fireside chat moderated by Caitlin Vannoy, NAR’s director of legal advocacy. The chat preceded a panel discussion on AI regulation moderated by Sipho Simela, founder and CEO of Matrix Rental Solutions, featuring Adam Thierer, resident senior fellow with the technology and innovation team at the R Street Institute, and Travis Hall, director for state engagement for the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The K-shaped economy
Kratsios pointed to data from financial technology company Ramp as evidence of a widening gap between AI adopters and those sitting on the sidelines. Because Ramp processes corporate card transactions, he said, the company can track which businesses are spending on AI tools — and what happens to their revenue as a result.
“They have seen an actual dramatic increase in the revenue numbers in those companies,” Kratsios said of AI-adopting businesses. “And the companies that aren’t purchasing AI or aren’t sort of adopting it, you’re seeing essentially stagnant growth.”
He said Ramp economists have grown concerned about the trend, describing it as a K-shaped economy in which a subset of businesses grow at above-average rates while everyone else flatlines.
Kratsios urged agents not to wait for perfect conditions before adopting AI, describing the learning curve as more manageable than it was even a year ago.
“I think it’s very possible,” he said. “The ROI on spending some part of your week just trying to absorb some of this and use it for some of your basic tasks — it’s sort of this snowball effect where you start seeing it working in one place, and you can think about testing it somewhere else.”
1,800 laws and no clear framework
The optimism from Kratsios gave way to a more cautious tone when the conversation shifted to the panel discussion on the regulatory landscape. During that discussion, Thierer and Hall painted a picture of a fragmented, fast-moving policy environment that poses real compliance risk for agents and brokers.
Thierer, who has tracked technology policy for 35 years, told the crowd the scale of AI legislative activity alone is staggering.
“We have in the United States today, according to one leading AI tracking service, 1,800 legislative measures,” Thierer said. “That’s a huge number.”
He said the surge represents a major reversal from the 1990s, when a bipartisan federal approach to internet policy helped birth the digital economy. Today, he said, Congress has largely become a non-actor on tech policy, leaving states to fill the void in inconsistent and sometimes contradictory ways.
“That’s insanity,” Thierer said of the patchwork approach. “That’s not a well-functioning, orderly marketplace for 2026.”
Who is responsible when AI goes wrong
Hall, whose organization focuses on civil rights and technology, zeroed in on a concern more immediate for agents: When AI tools produce a bad outcome in a real estate transaction, it is not yet clear who bears responsibility.
“The problem with artificial intelligence is that it obfuscates how decisions are made,” Hall said. “It obfuscates responsibility — who is ultimately responsible when things go wrong.”
He noted that agents are already legally responsible for fair housing compliance, accurate disclosures and client due diligence — obligations that do not pause because an AI tool was involved in the process.
“You are on the front lines,” Hall told the crowd, “and right now you are being told, and to be fair I think not wrongfully, use these tools, they will make you more efficient — but there is a layer of testing and responsibility for these tools that is missing.”
Drones, data and what’s coming next
Kratsios also previewed a regulatory change with direct implications for real estate professionals during his fireside chat: New federal rules governing beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations, which would allow agents to send a drone to map a property without being physically present.
“That’s currently illegal without an exception from the FAA,” Kratsios said, adding that final rules are expected soon.
On data ownership, Kratsios said the administration’s position is that creators should control how their content is used to train AI models.
“If you are a creator, if you create something, you should have control over that asset,” he said. “If you want to give consent to someone to use it, they should be able to use it. If you don’t want consent, they should not.”
Thierer closed his panel comments with a warning about what he sees as the next major pressure point for the industry: Litigation.
“The floodgates are now open on litigation,” he said, cautioning that trial lawyers have taken notice of the murky liability landscape around AI. Without federal safe harbor provisions, he said, even minor AI-related mistakes could expose brokerages and agents to legal action.
Hall closed by urging the crowd not to wait for regulatory clarity before establishing internal AI policies, warning that the alternative is worse.
“If you have not yet established an AI policy for your company, you already have one,” Hall said, paraphrasing a McKinsey finding. “You just don’t know about it.”
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