- 6 hours ago
In a conversation with HousingWire’s Vice President of Media and Events, Zeb Lowe, Chris Laskowski of New Home Star and data strategist Toby George discussed how AI-powered “second brains” help homebuilders connect fragmented data, improve sales performance and make more informed business decisions.
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00:13From HWHQ, I am Zeb Lowe, sitting in with Chris Luchowski and Toby George.
00:18You guys ready?
00:19Let's do it.
00:20Okay.
00:21Excited.
00:21Okay.
00:22So talk to me about the idea of a second brain or AI being used as a second brain specifically
00:28for home builders.
00:29What does that mean and why is that like the missing piece in this space?
00:34Yeah, absolutely.
00:35I think the second brain, that exact term, is becoming more and more mainstream.
00:40I think when you're looking at what it actually is, it's essentially the collective knowledge
00:45of your entire organization put into a single source.
00:50So all of the collective knowledge from your sales, your marketing, your operations, your
00:56customer service, all of that lives in one place and it is accessible, whether by other
01:04individuals, whether by automations or even MCPs, connectors to different apps.
01:10It just makes the data available for many use cases.
01:13And there's plenty in home building.
01:16Right.
01:16And I think that, I mean, I know that home builders, they have years and years of sales
01:22data, even just client conversations basically logged.
01:26So what happens when that information stays disconnected and what's the obvious advantage
01:31of connecting that?
01:33Yeah, I mean, we work with over 75 home builders across the country and something that we constantly
01:39see is that sometimes the tech stacks don't work well together.
01:45Sometimes they're not very well connected.
01:47You look at VoIP systems, you look at CRMs, you look at ERPs, you put all of that together
01:55and the disconnected systems can prevent you from getting to that next phase of having
02:02that second brain.
02:03So one of the disadvantages of not having an ecosystem that works with each other is that
02:10you're not able to really identify this data set with this data set.
02:14What does it mean between the two?
02:16And that kind of prevents all the use cases that are possible from it.
02:19I know that, you know, all of this information, it connects, second brains will connect what
02:24happened, what was said and why decisions were made.
02:28Do you think that bringing this knowledge together will open up or what new opportunities do you
02:33think bringing this knowledge together will open up and make available that just previously
02:38has not been available?
02:39Yeah, I think as I'm looking at the three most important use cases inside of home building,
02:45I'm looking at predictive analytics.
02:46I'm looking at analysis and I'm looking at automation.
02:51So with predictive analytics, what you're able to do there is just understand what home builders,
02:57what drives them, what moves them forward every single month.
03:01We look at this number is, are they going to hit goal?
03:03Are they going to hit net sales?
03:05And so whether you're trying to predict that number or others on the marketing or sales front,
03:11you're able to leverage that.
03:12With analysis, there's so much rich and important data all across the board.
03:16You look at the entire customer journey from click to close.
03:20There's just so much in there and understanding the gaps.
03:24Where are the breakdowns?
03:26Where is the customer journey not working as effectively?
03:30That type of analysis or just even understanding what it is that is going on with your business.
03:35I think that becomes especially powerful.
03:39And then the last one here, and this is the one I'm most excited about, is all of the features
03:45that are available when you have applications actually doing things for builders.
03:51I think that's the ultimate holding grail for the second brain is what can you automate in a way that's
03:57more powerful than a human can actually do?
03:59And as I'm thinking about it, there's a few examples that come to mind.
04:05But one of the biggest opportunities, I think, is the online sales concierge position.
04:10Your OSC is working maybe eight hours a day.
04:14By extending that and having an OSC bot take over conversations outside of hours, outside of when they're available during
04:25those working hours, capture those appointments, that's a really powerful use case for builders.
04:32But there's plenty more here.
04:33So, Toby, what are your thoughts?
04:35Yeah, I think, you know, Chris has mentioned a lot of really, you know, great things.
04:39And, you know, for us, we've been fortunate enough to do some work with some of the large public home
04:43builders, you know, and going back three or four years where I think some were very forward thinking in terms
04:49of like building that data foundation.
04:52And the foundation concept is something I think is a great analogy for home building.
04:56You know, we sat down with some, you know, CFOs, chief marketing officers, and talking about what that would ultimately
05:02enable.
05:03This was before AI was really a thing, right?
05:07And so we think about some of the things that they're able to do now by, you know, integrating and
05:12managing that data centrally, putting the governance on top of it.
05:16And now, you know, they're able to leverage third-party AI tools and, you know, capability that are inherent in
05:24some of these modern platforms like the snowflakes of the world, right?
05:27So it's really amazing to see how that data foundation has been able to really enable some of these more
05:33advanced use cases that Chris is talking about.
05:37This is a question for both of you.
05:39When you were talking about these points of disconnect, what are the most common points of disconnect that you see
05:47this second brain being able to course correct from home builder to home builder?
05:53Do you find it like, is it the same thing from one organization to the other, Bailey?
05:57I think it is.
05:58I think when I'm looking at maybe just back up one point before that one, what is the most important
06:05data that a home builder has?
06:07And I always look at what, at the point of sale, why did someone buy or not buy?
06:16So everything up to that point and then working backwards, but the data that allows you to predict that piece
06:24is probably the most valuable data.
06:27And that's very nuanced data.
06:29And a lot of it actually happens at the sales forefront.
06:34So you look at your model homes, you look at sales agents interacting with buyers.
06:41One of the disconnects that I see is just not being able to capture all of that nuance that's happening,
06:48not being able to capture the nuance, the experience that's happening.
06:52And with sales agents, you've got really emails, calls, text, meetings, and their notes, right?
07:00So all of those sources are where I see the most disconnect.
07:05The disconnect in not having calls being recorded and transcribed and fed into the second brain.
07:12The disconnect with not having a rich meeting that takes sometimes 90 minutes and is the decision-making portion of
07:20the entire experience of why someone will move with them or not.
07:24But not being able to capture all of that and feed it back into the collective intelligence of the organization,
07:30that seems to be the biggest gap.
07:34I think when I look back then on other pieces of data, operationally, builders are excellent.
07:40They've got ERPs.
07:41They've got estimating systems.
07:43They know exactly which floor plan has, the type of features that are being used there or not.
07:48Also, the marketing data is pretty pristine.
07:53When we're looking at what is fed from that click to close customer journey, everything on the marketing side is
08:04relatively clean because builders won't continue spending on the marketing front if they're not seeing a return on investment.
08:11So Google, Meta, other channels like Zillow and Realtor.com, all of them have worked hard to make sure that
08:18you're seeing that data.
08:19What do they click on?
08:20What are the experience that's being fed on?
08:23But the biggest disconnect that I'm seeing is for sure on the sales front.
08:27Are you capturing the richest data that's closest to the decision of buying a home with you guys or not?
08:36And that's a great point.
08:38We always tell our customers that the information about your customers and prospects is the one thing your competitors cannot
08:46replicate.
08:47It should be treated as a strategic asset, right?
08:49And so collecting those nuances and organizing those things in a way that you can manage and apply business roles
08:55to so that you can harvest that later in decision making, very, very critical.
08:59That was going to lead to my next question, which is some of the oftentimes the most valuable information is
09:04in the mind of, in this particular case, you're talking about your salespeople, right?
09:07But how do you recommend that organizations go about capturing or harnessing that information that's, you know, that's in their
09:14head?
09:15Yeah, I think it all starts with this tech stack.
09:18Having, you can't just implement every single tool out there, every single piece of technology out there.
09:24You've got to have a plan.
09:25You've got to be doing it one piece at a time.
09:29And so having a vision for what is your future tech stack look like?
09:35How does it integrate?
09:37How does it collect?
09:38Does it play well together?
09:40And building that plan out, I think often is going to be the first step.
09:44You've got to have a vision for what is the customer journey and the data points that you're going to
09:51be able to collect and the platforms are going to be able to do that for you.
09:55And are they complimentary?
09:57So once you have that, then it's just a process of going one tool at a time and implementing it.
10:04The two most common ones that we see is being able to actually record meetings at the sales office, 90
10:13-minute conversation, whether it's a first welcome and demonstration appointment or it's a feedback and you're trying to get to
10:20a contract.
10:21That nuance is so rich that unstructured data has so much potential for a home builder.
10:28And so we're seeing the meetings and calls being often the two items that are missed inside of the entire
10:36customer journey.
10:37But we are seeing the pattern actually change pretty significantly, especially in this year.
10:43Yeah.
10:44Toby, I think this is something that you can speak to.
10:46But, you know, building the second brain from my limited understanding of it requires more than just connecting systems.
10:52But data governance or governance, excuse me, is a huge factor in that.
10:56Can you speak to the other factors at play or that are most important to building the second brain that
11:03go beyond just connecting systems?
11:05Yeah.
11:05You know, we tend to look at things through a people process data technology.
11:10So Chris just kind of talked about a lot of those things.
11:13It's, you know, a lot of times when you're kind of going through this organizational change of kind of building
11:18the centralized data platform, getting all of your data integrated together.
11:21It is a very kind of grassroots program.
11:24It's a great time to start adopting governance.
11:26And so you've got to look at that in terms of like, okay, do we have the right people in
11:29place to do that?
11:31Do we have the right processes to manage that?
11:33Do we have the technology to manage that?
11:34And then how are we going to kind of monitor and treat the data during that process?
11:38And then, you know, it becomes of how we integrate the data.
11:42How do we utilize the data?
11:43How are we optimizing the data?
11:45Right.
11:45So there's a lot of considerations in there, but kind of bringing all that together.
11:49And I think right sizing it too.
11:51It's never this like boil the ocean exercise right out of the gate.
11:55You've got to kind of find some way to drive incremental value over time and governance.
12:00And so it's what we always tell our customers is let's just find something that feels right, that we can
12:05implement quickly, that can get adopted in the organization.
12:08Put the people, put the process in place, align some basic technology is maybe that first step.
12:13But really then kind of find a way to grow it organically in the organization.
12:17Speaking of people, I mean, how do you recommend leaders go about ensuring trust in their people that this is
12:26a tool that's being instituted to help them, not a threat to them?
12:33Yeah, that's a great question.
12:34You know, I think we see that in all of our customers, right?
12:39So it's like I've been managing this process for 10 years.
12:43Like I come in and I run this report and I do this data and I trust it.
12:47And now you're telling me that you're going to, you know, ingest unstructured data in the form of transcripts from
12:54calls and then formulate some sort of sentiment of how that customer behaved.
12:58And I'm supposed to believe that without me actually doing it.
13:01And I think that, you know, a lot of times what we've done is kind of taken those two processes
13:06in parallel and kind of showing that they're the same, right?
13:11Is really getting them to believe in that process.
13:14Yeah.
13:14And it's a very difficult thing.
13:16It really is.
13:17Even some of our large, you know, larger like healthcare customers, right?
13:20That's a big deal whenever you're kind of building that platform, automating a lot of these processes, right?
13:27And the same thing I think in home building.
13:29I mean, dealing with some of the large publics, it's, you know, some of the processes that are happening out
13:33in the field.
13:34And then bringing that back into, you know, the IT organization, the data services organization, it's a big deal.
13:41So I think just kind of proving to them that it is the same.
13:45And I think actually, too, it's demonstrating that you're giving them time back to do other things, right?
13:52And that starts to get more value add activity versus just creating a report or building a dashboard.
13:57I think really starts to get them to believe in, you know, the overall trust of the foundation.
14:03Right.
14:03The home building space is a very competitive industry.
14:06And I'm curious to know how you see or how both of you see this changing the competitive landscape and
14:12how builders compete with one another over the next decade.
14:14Yeah, I think if you're able to make decisions faster, they're built on better data, you have a competitive advantage
14:24of your competition.
14:25And I think that's really the basis for what the second brain does.
14:29It's allowing you as a leader at a home building company to gain access to what's happening at the front
14:36lines, what's happening throughout the entire customer journey from click to close, being able to see the gaps, being able
14:43to tackle them.
14:45And having that insight allows you to act faster, faster, allows you to have better decision making.
14:51And ultimately, it allows you to sell more homes more profitably.
14:56And there's just so much tech and so many capabilities that are coming out that the sky's the limit when
15:02it comes to AI.
15:03Right.
15:04Tell me.
15:05Yeah.
15:05You know, I think just kind of when Chris and I first met, we talked a lot about some of
15:10the home building use cases that we had.
15:12And I even look today at kind of what some of those builders are doing.
15:16And it's amazing, you know, even from a land acquisition perspective, you know, looking at geospatial data and identifying parcels
15:24that can be, you know, acquired more quickly.
15:28Three years ago, that wasn't even on the radar.
15:31Right.
15:31And so with the tools and technology that are advancing, you know, today, who knows what some of these, you
15:37know, these AI models will be doing in two or three years.
15:39And I think that, you know, making sure that there is a data strategy before there's an AI strategy is
15:46a big deal.
15:47Right.
15:47Is building that foundation and really creating something that's flexible and scalable for whatever's coming.
15:53Right.
15:53Because we don't know necessarily.
15:55That's really the advantage.
15:57And, you know, a lot of times that it's blocking and tackling, sometimes building that foundation, but it's absolutely critical
16:04to be ready for, you know, whatever future capability might exist.
16:07I think there's a couple more that I'm really excited about.
16:13On the marketing front, we work a lot with leads coming in, appointments coming in, everything being in to going
16:21into the CRM.
16:23And, you know, sometimes the sales agent might have two, three, 400 leads that they're working at any one time,
16:30but they have a limited capacity on what they can tackle.
16:34So one of my favorite use cases, especially on the sales front, is that agents have limited time to really
16:42work every prospect that's going through the CRM.
16:45Sometimes they're inundated with hundreds and hundreds of leads and all of them are just sitting open in the CRM.
16:52As a builder executive, being able to take a look at and understand who are the top 20% of
17:01your prospects, where should the 80% of your sales agent's time be spent on, I think is powerful to
17:08move the needle right now, especially as we're navigating an economic situation that's definitely not as good as we've seen
17:18in many, many years.
17:19So propensity scoring is another use case that would be really strong for home building.
17:25Excellent.
17:25One of the things that I see happening in the industry as well is there's still organizations that are, I
17:30don't know, tooling around with AI adoption.
17:33They're not all in yet.
17:35They still kind of see it as a nice to have, not a need to have.
17:39So what would your response be to organizations that are still kind of half in, half out?
17:45I think the time is right now for home builders to really take advantage of the opportunity that we're having.
17:53We're looking at other industries and we're already seeing so much progress when it comes to actually creating impact for
18:00that organization.
18:02And right now with the way that technology has progressed on both sales and marketing and operations, being able to
18:09connect to that right now is actually a relatively easy effort.
18:13And you're able to really get that compounded effort of value coming to life for your organization.
18:20So the time, for sure, 2026, what is going to be possible in 2027, once you have all the integrations,
18:30once you have a data structure and processes in place, it's just going to compound.
18:36Yeah, you know, I remember years ago talking to one of our home building customers and AI was like the,
18:43you know, in terms of like building a home was like the secret room in the attic, right?
18:47And, you know, I'll go back to the data foundation, right?
18:50There is, I think, four layers that you need.
18:53You need to manage stable data platform.
18:55You need integrated and engineered data.
18:57You need a governed semantic layer.
18:59And then AI on top of it.
19:01You can buy some AI tools and have some success in isolation.
19:04But when you're talking about this broad scale, cross-dimensional analysis across your business, you've got to really have that
19:11strategy of how we're going to bring that data together.
19:13Similar to kind of what Chris and his team are thinking about.
19:15And that's really where the value starts to get unlocked, right?
19:19And so I think that there's time that's required to spend in your business, thinking about how to do that,
19:24how to do it the right way with the right technology,
19:27putting those people and processes in place.
19:29But it's absolutely critical in order to achieve that full value out of AI and trust it, have that trust
19:36in it.
19:36Chris, Toby, thank you for joining me.
19:37It was a pleasure.
19:38Absolutely.
19:39Great being with you.