Moderate pressure on real estate agents. The shape is what matters.

Real estate agents have had the same prediction made about them for fifteen years — that the internet would replace them. It didn't. AI hasn't either.

Automation is medium and rising. Listing copy, comparable analysis, valuation models, scheduling, follow-up emails, market reports — most of it AI-handled by 2026. The agent's day got shorter on admin and longer on relationships.

Augmentation is high. Buyer-matching, neighbourhood research, contract review, virtual staging. Market analysis at the level a senior agent used to do is now available to a junior agent on day one. That commoditises the easy part.

Resilience is medium-high. Trust, negotiation, the moment-of-the-offer, local market judgement, the willingness to walk through a buyer's anxieties at 9pm on a Sunday — none of it is in any model. The agents thriving in 2026 are the ones who use AI to remove the volume work and double down on the relationship work. The agents struggling are the ones whose value was "I have access to the listings" — that hasn't been true for a decade.