Meet the AI platform giving every agent a personal coach

For some real estate brokers and team leaders, coaching can be difficult to scale. Individual coaching offers more personalized guidance but can be costly, while group training reaches more agents but may not address each agent’s specific needs.

Phillip Gagnon, founder and CEO of broker management platform 3 Data Pulse, believes artificial intelligence (AI) has finally cracked the code.

He recently launched Power Mentor, an AI coaching platform built specifically for real estate agents.

With 12 coaching personas covering everything from objection handling to mindset, Power Mentor gives every agent on a team access to an AI coach — available 24/7 and individually tailored.

Gagnon sat down with HousingWire to show how AI coaching is bridging the gap between expensive human coaches and no coaching at all.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jonathan Delozier: Looking at the way the product is described, real estate is still a relationship business built on trust. What evidence shows that agents coached by an AI platform perform better in the everyday workflow and not just inside role-play environments?

Phillip Gagnon: So, we have data from 3 Data Pulse showing that agents that receive any level of coaching will outperform the market by about 30% year-over-year. The challenge with coaching is that it becomes expensive, and especially newer agents can’t really afford it. Sometimes, it can be $2,000 a month for a coach. So, we kind of tried to bridge the gap.

[I also saw a report] showing that 30% of Americans have used AI as a therapist, so we’re kind of bridging those two things together. People seem willing to be vulnerable and open with an AI, and receiving any level of coaching will help their business dramatically. We’re just putting those two pieces together.

Delozier: How do you distinguish yourself from other similar products, or even from real-life human real estate coaches?

Gagnon: So our AI is more than just role play, it’s actual coaching. It’s understanding why the agent wants to do whatever it is that they want to do. They may want to increase their business or even just free up time, but then the question is, why do they want to do that? What do they want to do with the increase in their business and how do we help them achieve whatever it is that they want. A lot of times, with real. [human] coaches, especially if it’s at a brokerage, they’ll have a preconceived notion of, “You did 2 million in volume last year, you need to do 4 million this year.” But the agent may not want to do that.

Number two is that we understand that agents like to run their businesses differently. Some agents are really good at networking and events. Other agents tend to be more introverted and want to spend time sending emails and maybe making cold calls, and that works for them. So, we’ve taken that approach with our 12 different coaching personas to say, “Okay, let’s find something that works for you and your personality.”

Delozier: You mentioned a pilot group of agents. What was the most surprising feedback you received?

Gagnon: We got great feedback from them. They said it wasn’t just like a chat bot or going to ChatGPT — that it surfaced things from previous conversations and it actually had some sort of a personality. It thought of things that they weren’t expecting.

One of the things that had come up in a conversation with an agent was the coach said, “You should do a neighborhood spotlight video on a neighborhood near you.” And the agent responded and said, “I just don’t like doing videos. I don’t like how I look on video. I don’t like how I sound.” The coach was actually able to talk them through that and they were able to record the video. 

Delozier: With growing scrutiny over compliance and disclosure standards, how does Power Mentor ensure compliance?

Gagnon: There are multiple levels that make sure that we do not address anything legal, contract-related, deal doctoring, any of that stuff. All of that, it pushes back and says, “You need to talk to your broker, you need to talk to an attorney, talk to your real estate commission or talk to somebody.” The Power Mentor will not address any of that.

Delozier: What return on investment metrics should clients look for with Power Mentor to know they’re getting their money’s worth?

Gagnon: You know, one of the questions that we ask during the onboarding process is, “If you had a coach that understood you and understood how you want to run your business, how many extra transactions could you do a year?” They provide that number and then our goal is to help them do that.

Delozier: Is Power Mentor available nationwide, and does it have any integrations with other platforms?

Gagnon: Yes, nationwide. Right now we don’t. In our 3 Data Pulse product, we do have a Follow Up Boss integration, and so we’re looking to port that over in Version 2 [of Power Mentor], along with Lofty, as well. This way the coach can actually see what the agent is putting in their CRM — if they’re using the CRM— and what activities they’re actually doing versus what they’re reporting, that kind of thing.