An Interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman About DevDay and the AI Buildout
“Well, with these apps in there, is there a sense on your side it’s like, just to go back to the, “We have all this usage, it’s going to be better if I can just use Zillow in the app”? This idea of going somewhere else and Zillow says, “Oh, I’d rather them be in our app, we spent so much time on it”, do you feel you have the power to dictate, “For the user, it’s a better experience and because the users are here, if you’re not there, someone else will be” — and you’re sort of able to, dictate sounds bad, but if it’s a better user experience, that’s better for everyone else?
SA: No. Here’s another place that I think my early career training was useful. There was a version of this we could have done where it was a better user experience, but terrible for the partners.
What would that look like?
SA: Well, I mean, on that Zillow example, what if you just said like, “Hey, ChatGPT, find me all of the houses that meet these things”, and we said we’re going to control the UI.
Oh, right. So there’s not even a presentation layer of the Zillow app, you’re just getting the results.
SA: Yeah, yeah. But I felt really strongly that when we do this, it’s something that the whole ecosystem benefits from, and specifically that new startups can rocket into existence because of it. So we did this in a way where you very much have the relationship with the other site. You’re calling them by name, we’re suggesting them by name, they’re taking over the UI, they’re linking their account. So I think there was something we could have done that was maybe slightly more user-friendly, but not good for the other companies, and I really didn’t want us to do that.”
I’m a big fan of Ben Thompson’s blog Stratechery. Anytime his posts or interviews cross paths with real estate tech I get a little tingly. The clip above is very revealing. It’s clear Sam thinks the better version of the Zillow integration is one where ChatGPT controls the UI and UX. But his experience tells him he needs partners to succeed. Which is pretty lucky for Zillow in more ways than one.
Another point I would make. One could argue that ChatGPT version of returning results via a Zillow app is better, for the industry long term, than the current method of search results showing up on Google’s platform natively.
You might need a subscription, but I highly recommend listening to the full interview or reading Ben’s latest update.
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