AI CRMs for estate agents in 2027: 5 compared

Updated for 2027 in October 2026. Competitor information checked in October 2026. Originally published May 2026.

The short answer

Alto is the most complete AI CRM for UK estate agents going into 2027. It’s the only platform of the five with six live AI skills that finish whole agency jobs (from the appraisal report to the progression chase), plus live AI across prospecting, 24/7 lead handling, listing creation, plain-English analytics and compliance. Every action is logged, nothing reaches a client until an agent approves it, and there are no usage-based token costs. Street’s agentic product, Cortex, is still on a waitlist. Reapit’s RAI Copilot still has no confirmed general availability. Rex still has two of its four AI pillars marked “coming late 2026”. Loop has no AI product of its own.

Jump to: What to look for · Alto · Street · Reapit · Rex and Loop · Full comparison table · The verdict · FAQs

AI in estate agency software moved faster in 2026 than in any year before it. In May we compared three platforms. By the summer it was five. Now, heading into 2027, the question has changed again. It’s no longer “does this CRM have AI?” It’s “does the AI actually finish the job, can I change how it works, and who carries the risk when it writes to my clients?”

Here’s what’s moved since our last update. Alto’s six skills are live. Street has added lettings agents to Cortex, but it’s still on a waitlist. Reapit has taken more than £20m of fresh investment and announced a new customer portal, but RAI Copilot still has no confirmed general availability date. Rex’s remaining AI pillars are still listed as “coming late 2026”. And Loop now connects to a third-party AI maintenance tool, while still having no AI product of its own.

Three platforms are competing seriously on AI. Two more are worth understanding precisely because they aren’t, for very different reasons. We’ve compared all five on what decides whether AI changes how your agency runs: operational outcomes, governance, and what’s live versus what’s been announced.

This article is about AI specifically. If you’re choosing a CRM on the full picture (pricing, migration, property management, support), read our comparison of the 8 leading estate agency CRM platforms for 2027, or start with how to choose an estate agency CRM: the 2027 buyer’s guide.

What to actually look for in an AI estate agency CRM in 2027

Six questions worth asking of any provider before you sign:

• Does the AI finish the job, or just draft text? Listing descriptions are useful. AI that writes the whole appraisal report, qualifies your leads at 11pm on a Sunday, and tells you which agreed sales are about to fall through (then drafts the chase) is a different kind of useful entirely.
• Can you change how it works, or build your own? Every agency judges comparables, tone and risk slightly differently. In 2027 you should be able to change the criteria an AI tool uses, and build one for the job only your agency does, without writing code.
• Does it work with live pipeline data? AI that works on static inputs (a photo, a template) is limited to the moment of creation. AI connected to live CRM data can flag what’s about to go wrong before it does.
• Is every action auditable? In its most recent published list, HMRC issued 170 AML penalties to estate agency businesses in a single six-month period, more than any other supervised sector. And in September 2026 the government confirmed that property agents will need a licence and qualifications, overseen by an independent regulator. AI that produces output without an audit trail isn’t AI you can rely on when the regulator comes asking.
• Who carries the governance risk? Some platforms hand you the tools to build AI workflows and leave it there. In practice that means your agency carries the governance burden. Who’s responsible when an AI-written message lands you in front of the Property Ombudsman?
• Is it live today, or is it a promise? The gap between “announced” and “working in your agency today” is where a lot of 2026 AI promises still sit. Two of the platforms below have flagship AI products that have passed their own announced launch windows.

Alto: six skills that finish the job, on top of AI that already runs the agency

Alto’s AI is built into Alto, the CRM used by over a third of UK estate agents. It has two layers. Six Alto skills finish whole agency jobs and hand back a draft for an agent to approve. Underneath, AI tools cover prospecting, 24/7 lead handling, listing creation, plain-English analytics and compliance. All of it is live, and every action is logged, attributable and reviewable.

Alto’s AI isn’t a bolt-on, a separate subscription or a beta. It’s built into Alto, which is trusted by over 6,000 agents across the UK.

That matters more than it sounds. Alto’s AI isn’t a generic language model pointed at a database. It runs on 20 years of real agency workflow data across over 6,000 agents: real transactions, real progression chains, real compliance patterns, around 1 billion anonymised data points in all. A newer platform can’t build that in a quarter.

Alto skills: six jobs, done from start to finish

This is the change that moves the comparison on. An AI feature helps an agent do a job. An Alto skill does the job: it gathers the data, makes the judgement, writes the words and hands back a finished draft for an agent to approve. Alto has six skills live:

• Appraisal builder writes the whole appraisal report and ranks the properties that are actually comparable, not just the ones on the same street with the same number of bedrooms.
• Property matcher emails applicants their matches the day a property launches or a price drops, one curated update per contact rather than an email per property.
• Listing writer writes the description, bullets and room-by-room in the agency’s own style, learned from listings it has already published.
• Progression chaser ranks the pipeline worst first, says which sales are in danger and why in plain English, then drafts the chase.
• Alto IQ answers plain-English questions about the business with a chart, table or number.
• Message writer drafts every email in the branch’s tone of voice. It runs underneath the other five and works on its own.

Two things separate this from an AI feature list. First, every Alto skill can be changed by the agency using it: the criteria it judges on, the tone it writes in, the thresholds that decide what gets flagged. Second, agencies get the same tools Alto’s own team used, so they can edit a skill, join skills together or build one for the job only they do. An agency describes the job in plain English, with no code to write.

On governance, the rules are simple. Every Alto skill runs on the agency’s own records, scoped to its branch and permissions. Nothing reaches a client and no record changes until a person approves it, and every action logs back to the record. That’s the difference between letting an agency build its own AI and leaving it to carry the risk alone.

What the skills judge against is the other half. Alto’s applicant matching alone draws on 20 million anonymised data points from the last four years. As Alto CEO Riccardo Iannucci-Dawson puts it: “You can build a clever interface in a quarter. You can’t manufacture 20 years of estate agency workflow data.”

Early access customers have put numbers on it. Nicholas Lamb, Managing Director of Webbs Estate Agents: “Between the appraisal builder and the listing writer alone, I could save 40 hours a week. That’s a full-time member of staff.” Sam Whitehead, Operations Director at The Accommodation Bureau: “Matching alone genuinely takes us 20 minutes per property when it’s done by hand, so the team will be straight on that.”

More detail in six Alto skills, live from September, and the wider picture in AI for estate agents in 2027.

Alto Prospecting (powered by Sprift)

Alto Prospecting surfaces landlords and sellers showing real intent before competitors know they exist. Whole-of-market Sprift data sits inside Alto: signals, contacts, branded mailer campaigns and tracking all run in the CRM, with no second login or separate contract. Agents using Alto Prospecting average 22% more instructions in year one. Kings Group’s Edmonton branch generated £96,000 in additional annual instruction revenue from it, in just 10 months.

24/7 lead handling (powered by BridgeAI)

Alto handles inbound enquiries around the clock through its BridgeAI integration. It responds across portals, WhatsApp and email, qualifies applicants, books viewings straight into Alto diaries and screens 90% of lettings applicants before a negotiator steps in. Everything syncs back to the contact record automatically.

“13 qualified viewings booked over the weekend without lifting a finger.” John Rees, Genie Homes.

Alto Smart Listings

Alto’s Smart Listings automates listing creation from start to finish. AI reads the actual floorplan and photographs for each property (not a template), generates room names, measurements and listing copy, then publishes to Rightmove, Zoopla, OnTheMarket and the agency’s website in a single action. Listings go to the vendor for approval before going live. It’s 8x faster than doing it by hand, saving 30 minutes per listing on average.

Hunters Bradford: “Alto’s AI has taken listing creation from a half-day job to half an hour. Across 30 listings a month, that’s someone working full-time for two weeks.”

Alto IQ

Alto IQ is the UK property market’s first autonomous AI data analyst built directly into a CRM. It answers plain-English questions about pipeline, performance, compliance and forecasts, and flags anomalies before agents go looking for them.

Ask “which negotiators have the highest fall-through rate?” or “where are arrears starting to build?” and get an instant visual answer. No report, no export, no data team. Alto IQ is included for Alto Core and Elite customers with no additional token costs. The Accommodation Bureau saved 105 minutes in a single session the first time it used it.

That last detail is worth pausing on. As you’ll see below, every other platform here either has no plain-English analytics, ties it to a product that hasn’t launched, or meters it by usage.

Alto Verification and AutoCert

Alto Verification, powered by Thirdfort, handles identity checks, AML screening and source of funds, logged directly in the Alto contact record so every check is attributable and reviewable. It cuts client checks and set-up time by around 85%.

Alto’s AutoCert spots expiring certificates across a managed portfolio, triggers the renewal automatically and handles the process from start to finish. Time per certificate renewal drops from around 30 minutes to five.

Every AI action in Alto is logged, attributable and reviewable by design. Alto built its AI for the regulation that’s coming, not just the rules that exist today.

Street: capable tools, a governance problem, and Cortex still on a waitlist

Street is an AI-enabled estate agency CRM with six built-in AI tools covering listing creation, photo editing, out-of-hours call handling and content generation. It has real strengths. It also has a governance stance that leaves regulatory risk with the agency, and its agentic AI product, Cortex, was still on a waitlist in October 2026, with usage-based pricing.

Street’s six AI tools are live: AI Onboarding (listing creation from floorplans and photos), AI Photo Editor, AI Call Handler (out-of-hours enquiry handling), AI Sales Summary, AI Content Generator and AI Tone of Voice. The AI Photo Editor handles virtual staging and object removal and is strong. Credit where it’s due.

In July 2026 Street Group took strategic growth investment from Hg at a valuation of more than £200m, explicitly to deepen its AI. Tom and Heather Staff remain co-Chief Executives and majority shareholders. This is a well-funded competitor and should be treated as one.

The Cortex question

Street announced Cortex on 27th April 2026: agentic AI that mass-personalises customer engagement. Here’s what agencies evaluating it for 2027 should know.

It still isn’t generally available. In its August 2026 update Street added lettings agents (maintenance, contractor quotes, applications, tenancies, inspections and compliance checks), a conversational assistant called Ask Cortex, ready-made agent recipes and SMS. Access was still being rolled out to agencies on the waitlist. When we checked in October 2026, the Cortex site still led with “Join the waitlist”. That’s six months from announcement to still not generally available.

Usage is metered. Cortex bills in ACUs (Agent Compute Units). Street’s own definition: “Every agent run consumes ACUs based on the model tier, tokens processed, and tools used.” Cortex now lists four plans, Starter to Enterprise, on usage-based pricing, and Street no longer publishes the monthly prices it showed earlier in 2026. At the volume Cortex is built for (personalised outreach to an entire customer base), usage cost is a variable, not a fixed line item. Model the total cost of ownership before you commit, not the headline licence fee.

By contrast, Alto IQ is included for Alto Core and Elite customers with no token costs and no usage meter.

More significantly, Street’s CEO has said publicly that disclosure of AI-generated communications is “up to agents”. That position won’t survive the direction of travel from The Property Ombudsman, the ICO and the new regulator the government confirmed in September 2026. Every Cortex action that isn’t logged, attributable and reviewable is a governance liability sitting on the agency’s desk, not Street’s.

What Street has published about Alto that isn’t accurate

Street’s own comparison piece says Alto has “no out-of-hours lead handling”.

That’s incorrect. Alto handles inbound enquiries 24/7 through BridgeAI. It responds across portals, WhatsApp and email, qualifies applicants and books viewings outside office hours. Genie Homes booked 13 qualified viewings over a single weekend using it.

The same piece describes Alto’s AI as “focused on content generation rather than running across the full operational workflow.” Alto’s AI includes 24/7 lead qualification, whole-of-market prospecting, AML and identity verification, an AI data analyst that flags anomalies, automated certificate renewals and six skills that finish whole jobs. That isn’t content generation.

To be fair to Street, its comparison does credit Alto correctly on plain-English reporting and compliance AI. But agencies reading any competitor comparison (this one included) should check the claims for themselves. That’s why we date and source ours.

The platform structure issue

Street’s AI is built on generic LLM output. Generic LLMs are non-deterministic: the same question on Monday can produce a different answer on Tuesday. In a regulated industry where consistency and auditability matter, that’s a structural issue. Alto’s AI is built for specific agency jobs, runs on real workflow data, and every output goes to an agent to approve. The results are predictable, auditable and attributable.

The analytics gap

Alto IQ (plain-English questions, anomaly detection, forecasting) has no equivalent in Street. Street’s reporting covers pipeline status, conversion rates and activity tracking. It tells you what happened. Alto IQ tells you why, and flags what’s about to happen before you ask.

Reapit: well funded, still waiting on its own launch date

Reapit RAI is Reapit’s AI product. Its headline feature, RAI Copilot, a voice-first AI assistant, was announced in April 2026 as “launching summer 2026”. By October 2026 Reapit still hadn’t announced general availability. Reapit has real strengths and fresh investment behind it. Its flagship AI is, for now, still a promise.

Reapit is a serious platform, and the scale is real: over 92,000 agents across 18,000+ branches managing around 1.3 million properties globally, and a genuine claim to more than 25 years of property data. Its Analytics+ product includes 30+ customisable reports, KPI dashboards and AI trend forecasting, which shouldn’t be dismissed. Its compliance set-up is solid, and it announced partnerships with Goodlord and Just Move In in June 2026.

On 2nd September 2026 Reapit announced more than £20m of new investment from Accel-KKR, alongside Reapit Home, a customer portal, and plans for an “intelligence layer”. It’s a clear signal of intent. It isn’t yet a launched AI product.

What Reapit has available now

AI property descriptions are live. Analytics+ with customisable reporting and trend forecasting is available. AI photo enhancement was listed as available at the April 2026 announcement. Thirdfort compliance has been available through the Reapit marketplace since 2023, with an extended partnership announced in March 2025, but it’s a separate marketplace app rather than built into the core CRM workflow.

What Reapit doesn’t yet have

RAI Copilot, the voice-first assistant at the centre of Reapit’s AI pitch, was announced on 23rd April 2026 with the words “The RAI Copilot launches summer 2026, with RAI Builder to follow.” Summer has been and gone. When we checked in October 2026 we found no announcement of general availability and no revised date, and Reapit’s own RAI site still showed a mix of “Live” and “Not deployed” labels.

Natural language querying (Reapit’s equivalent of Alto IQ) arrives with Copilot. RAI Builder, the no-code AI agent tool, follows after Copilot. Whole-of-market prospecting data, 24/7 multi-channel lead handling and automated certificate renewals aren’t available.

We’d rather be precise than point-score: Copilot could launch within weeks of this update. The point for agencies is that today you can’t evaluate it, demo it against your own data, or hold it to a date.

The AppMarket question

Reapit restricted agentic AI development for third-party providers in its AppMarket from around June 2025. In April 2026 it said partners would be able to register AI agents in the AppMarket “from June” 2026. We could find no announcement or documentation confirming that this opened.

Either way, the structure is the point: Reapit controls what enters its marketplace. Alto’s partner network (Sprift, BridgeAI, Aguru, Thirdfort, Bamboo and more) works without that gatekeeping.

The builder question

RAI Builder will let agencies build their own AI agents. Alto skills let agencies do that too, so the question isn’t whether you can build. It’s who carries the risk when what you build gets something wrong. In Alto, every skill runs on the agency’s own records within its permissions, nothing reaches a client until a person approves it, and every action is logged. Ask Reapit the same question about Builder before you sign.

The timing question

Agencies choosing Reapit going into 2027 are making a decision about a platform whose most significant AI isn’t yet available. That’s a reasonable long-term bet on a platform with real heritage and fresh investment behind it. It isn’t the right choice for agencies that need AI working in their business now.

And another two AI options: Rex and Loop

Alto, Street and Reapit are the three platforms competing seriously on AI. Two others come up on agency shortlists, and both deserve an honest look, because in both cases the AI story is much thinner than the category suggests, and in one case there isn’t an AI product at all.

Neither should be written off as a CRM. Both have real strengths. But if AI is what’s driving your decision for 2027, neither is currently in the same league as the three above.

Rex: an AI suite where half of it is still coming

Rex announced a four-pillar AI suite in May 2026. Two pillars are available. In October 2026 the other two, plus a newer AI Automations product, were still labelled “coming late 2026” on Rex’s own site. Its AI prospecting works on your own database rather than whole-of-market data, and it has no AI lead handling.

Rex Software (majority-owned by Potentia Capital, and merged with Cirrus8 and RealTrust in January 2026) announced Rex AI on 7th May 2026 as four pillars: AI Admin (also branded AI Assist), AI Prospecting, AI Nurture and AI Manage.

What’s live. AI Assist, AI Prospecting, email and SMS generation, natural language filters and ad copy generation.

What isn’t. AI Nurture and AI Manage were announced for “later 2026” and, as of October 2026, are still labelled “coming late 2026” on Rex’s own site, now alongside a new AI Automations product with the same label. Half the advertised suite isn’t live. Forecasting sits inside AI Manage, so it’s on the far side of that line. If those pillars do land, they’ll be brand new in early 2027, so ask for a live demo before you count on them.

Where it differs from the top three:

• Prospecting is internal, not whole-of-market. Rex’s own help documentation says AI Prospecting uses “signals already in your Rex CRM”. It produces a ranked daily call list from your existing database. That’s useful, but it isn’t the same as Alto Prospecting surfacing landlords and vendors across the whole market via Sprift, before they’re listed anywhere.
• No AI lead handling. Rex captures inbound portal and website leads, but we found no AI qualification, no AI chatbot, no AI voice agent and no WhatsApp channel. Its 24/7 answer is an integration with Moneypenny, a human telephone answering service.
• Listing AI is copy only. Rex generates portal and ad copy from structured listing data. We found no floorplan or photograph reading, and no AI-generated room names or measurements.
• No built-in AI photo enhancement or virtual staging. Photography, floorplans and tours are ordered from a third party, Made Snappy 360.
• Natural language means search, not analytics. Rex’s “Smart Natural Language Filters” let you filter records in plain English. That’s finding records, not a data analyst. We found no anomaly detection anywhere in the product, live or announced.
• AML is new and partner-led. Rex released its first AML integration, APLYiD, in April 2026. Before that, AML in Rex was a manual status field. We found no source-of-funds automation.

Where Rex deserves credit. It has an open REST API plus Zapier. It has a serious UK customer in Spicerhaart, which chose Rex for lettings and property management. And Rex PM is a purpose-built lettings and property management product rather than a retrofitted sales CRM.

Two practical caveats for UK agencies. Rex PM only launched in the UK in November 2025, so its UK lettings and property management product is still young. And Rex remains an Australia-first business in places that matter: its UK features page has listed Australian-only tools such as REI Forms, Realworks, RP Data and PriceFinder, and the AI example on its UK CRM page was priced in dollars. Rex publishes no UK customer count and no UK market share figure (the 10,000-agent figure it quotes is worldwide). Pricing is quote-only, with Rex AI bundled into the Professional tier and left out of Starter.

Loop: a good CRM that hasn’t built its own AI

Loop is a well-liked, well-priced UK CRM for independent agents with strong service reviews. It still has no named AI product and no publicly documented AI features of its own. In October 2026 it gained a two-way integration with Lettie, a third-party AI maintenance tool. If AI is your deciding factor, Loop isn’t competing for it, and doesn’t claim to be.

Loop Software Ltd is an independent, founder and management-owned UK business based in Moreton-in-Marsh, incorporated in 2017. It covers sales and lettings, including lettings accounting, and is aimed at ambitious independent agents rather than corporates.

On AI, the finding is simple: we couldn’t find any of its own. Specifically:

• Loop’s support knowledge base runs to 28 categories, none of which is AI.
• Its release notes contain no AI mentions.
• Its public API index lists no AI endpoints.
• It has no AI product page.
• When The Negotiator published a feature on estate agent CRMs and the AI revolution in July 2026, profiling ten vendors including Rex, Alto, Reapit, Street, iamproperty and Goodlord, Loop wasn’t among them.
• The nearest thing to AI is a partner: Lettie launched a two-way integration with Loop on 12th October 2026 for AI-assisted maintenance. That’s Lettie’s AI, not Loop’s.

The features that come closest are rules-based rather than AI:

• Seller Spy and prospecting. Loop matches registered buyers against competitor listings and flags properties by rule-based category (new instruction, slow mover, fall through, reduction, withdrawn). It’s a real reason agencies choose Loop. It isn’t AI, and it works from competitor portal listings rather than whole-of-market data.
• Portal autoresponder and automated viewing booking. Loop auto-emails portal enquirers a set of questions and returns the answers into the CRM, and can gate viewing slots behind qualifying questions. It’s template and rules-based, covers portals and email only, and has no WhatsApp, no voice handling and no conversational qualification.
• Listing creation is manual. Type, beds, baths, images, floorplans and descriptions are entered by hand. No AI copy, no floorplan reading, no measurement extraction, no photo enhancement.
• Certificates are reminders, not renewals. Certificates are set up per property with expiry dates and a reminder period. There’s no automatic contractor instruction and no renewal automation.
• AML sits with a partner. Loop integrates with Kotini for AML checks and Terms of Business. We found no source-of-funds automation.

The fair conclusion isn’t that Loop overclaims on AI. It’s that Loop hasn’t made the AI investment, and doesn’t pretend it has. For an independent agency that wants a modern, affordable, well-supported CRM with strong competitor-listing prospecting, that’s a coherent choice. For an agency whose 2027 priority is AI doing real work, it isn’t the answer.

How Alto, Street, Reapit, Rex and Loop compare

Ranked on AI for 2027 (checked October 2026)

1. Alto: six live skills that finish whole jobs, plus AI across prospecting, lead handling, listings, analytics and compliance. Included, not metered. Every action auditable.
2. Street: six live AI tools and strong photo enhancement, but its agentic product is still on a waitlist and usage is metered.
3. Reapit: solid platform at real scale with fresh investment, but its flagship AI is past its announced launch window with no general availability.
4. Rex: two of four announced AI pillars live, prospecting limited to your own database, no AI lead handling.
5. Loop: no AI product of its own. A capable, well-priced CRM competing on other things.

The verdict

Alto is the most complete AI CRM for UK estate agents going into 2027. It’s the only platform of the five where the AI finishes whole jobs rather than helping with them: six Alto skills, each handing back a finished draft for an agent to approve, each changeable by the agency, with the tools to build more. Underneath, Alto’s AI covers prospecting, 24/7 lead handling, listing creation, data analysis and compliance, all live, all inside Alto, all built on 20 years of real agency data from a CRM used by over a third of UK estate agents. And it’s the only platform here where plain-English analytics is both live and included, rather than metered, promised or missing.

Street has real AI, particularly in photo enhancement, and strong listing creation tools. It’s well funded and should be taken seriously. But its flagship agentic product is still on a waitlist, its true cost is metered by usage, and it has no equivalent to Alto IQ.

Reapit’s platform is solid, its scale is real and it has new money behind it. But RAI, the product Reapit is asking agencies to judge it on, has passed its own announced launch window without a confirmed general availability date. Agencies choosing Reapit for 2027 are betting on a promise.

Rex has made a credible start and has an open API, but half its announced AI suite still isn’t live, its prospecting only works on your own database, and it has no AI lead handling. Its UK lettings product is still young.

Loop is a good, fairly priced, well-supported CRM for independent agents, with no AI of its own. That’s a legitimate choice, but it isn’t an AI choice.

The agencies that look back on 2027 as the year they pulled ahead will be the ones that chose AI that was live, auditable, finished the job, and was built for the regulation they actually work under.

If AI isn’t the only thing driving your decision, our comparison of the 8 leading estate agency CRM platforms for 2027 covers pricing, migration, property management and support across a wider field.

See what Alto skills could do for your agency →

Related reading

• How to choose an estate agency CRM: the 2027 buyer’s guide
• Best estate agency CRM software in 2027: 8 platforms compared
• The UK’s best property management software for 2027: Alto vs Reapit vs Street compared
• AI for estate agents in 2027
• Six Alto skills, live from September
• What is an estate agency CRM? A beginner’s guide
• Best CRMs for multi-branch estate agencies in the UK, compared

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI CRM for estate agents in 2027?

Alto is the most complete AI CRM for UK estate agents going into 2027. It’s the only platform with six live AI skills that finish whole agency jobs (appraisal builder, property matcher, listing writer, progression chaser, Alto IQ and message writer), plus live AI across prospecting, 24/7 lead handling, listing creation, plain-English analytics and compliance. Street has strong photo and listing tools, but its agentic product, Cortex, was still on a waitlist in October 2026 with usage-based pricing. Reapit’s RAI Copilot had no announced general availability as of October 2026. Rex still had two of four AI pillars labelled “coming late 2026”. Loop has no AI product of its own.

What are Alto skills?

Alto skills are six AI tools inside Alto that each finish an everyday agency job from start to finish: appraisal builder, property matcher, listing writer, progression chaser, Alto IQ and message writer. Each one gathers the data, makes the judgement and writes the words, then hands a finished draft to an agent to approve. Every Alto skill can be changed by the agency using it, and agencies can build their own in plain English with no code. None of the other four platforms in this comparison has a live equivalent.

What is an AI CRM for estate agents?

An AI CRM for estate agents is a CRM with artificial intelligence built into the everyday agency workflow, rather than bolted on as a separate tool. In practice that means AI doing real work: writing appraisal reports, qualifying inbound leads outside office hours, creating listings from floorplans and photographs, answering plain-English questions about pipeline and performance, automating AML and identity checks, and renewing compliance certificates. The distinction that matters in 2027 is between AI that finishes a job for an agent to approve, and AI that only drafts text.

Which AI CRMs did we compare, and why these five?

Alto, Street and Reapit are the three platforms competing seriously on AI for UK estate agencies. Rex and Loop are included because both appear on agency shortlists and both are often grouped into the “AI CRM” category: Rex because it announced an AI suite in May 2026, Loop because it’s a strong modern CRM. Looked at closely, both offer much less AI than the top three, and in Loop’s case none of its own.

Does Rex have AI?

Yes, partly. Rex announced a four-pillar AI suite on 7th May 2026: AI Admin (also called AI Assist), AI Prospecting, AI Nurture and AI Manage. AI Assist and AI Prospecting are available. AI Nurture and AI Manage, plus a newer AI Automations product, were still labelled “coming late 2026” on Rex’s site in October 2026. Rex’s AI prospecting works on signals in your own Rex database rather than whole-of-market data, and Rex has no AI inbound lead handling. Its 24/7 option is an integration with a human telephone answering service.

Does Loop have AI?

We found no named AI product and no publicly documented AI features in Loop as of October 2026. Loop’s support knowledge base has no AI category, its release notes contain no AI mentions, and its public API index lists no AI endpoints. In October 2026 Loop gained a two-way integration with Lettie, a third-party AI maintenance tool, but that’s Lettie’s AI rather than Loop’s. Loop’s prospecting, Seller Spy, portal autoresponder and automated viewing booking are rules and template-based. Loop is a capable CRM with open pricing, an open API and good service reviews. It simply hasn’t built its own AI.

Is Street Cortex available?

Not as a generally available product. Street announced Cortex on 27th April 2026 and added lettings agents, a conversational assistant and SMS in August 2026, with access rolling out to agencies on its waitlist. In October 2026 the Cortex site still led with “Join the waitlist”. Cortex is priced on four usage-based plans, Starter to Enterprise, with usage metered in Agent Compute Units, and Street no longer publishes the monthly prices it showed earlier in 2026.

Has Reapit RAI Copilot launched?

Reapit announced on 23rd April 2026 that “The RAI Copilot launches summer 2026, with RAI Builder to follow.” As of October 2026 we could find no announcement of general availability and no revised date. In September 2026 Reapit announced more than £20m of new investment and a customer portal called Reapit Home, but not a Copilot launch. Natural language querying (Reapit’s equivalent of Alto IQ) is due with Copilot, and RAI Builder follows after it.

Does Alto have out-of-hours lead handling?

Yes. Alto handles inbound enquiries 24/7 through its BridgeAI integration, across portals, WhatsApp and email. It qualifies applicants and books viewings into Alto diaries automatically, outside office hours. Some competitor comparison pieces have said Alto has no out-of-hours lead handling. That isn’t accurate.

What is Alto IQ?

Alto IQ is the UK property market’s first autonomous AI data analyst built directly into a CRM, and one of Alto’s six skills. It answers plain-English questions about pipeline, performance, compliance and revenue forecasting, and flags anomalies (stalling deals, building arrears, cold applicants) before agents go looking for them. It’s included for Alto Core and Elite customers with no additional token costs. None of the other four platforms in this comparison offers a live, included equivalent.

How much do AI CRMs cost, and are there hidden AI costs?

Cost models differ a lot and matter more than headline price. Alto includes Alto IQ for Core and Elite customers with no token costs. Street’s Cortex is priced on usage-based plans metered in Agent Compute Units. Rex bundles Rex AI into its Professional tier and leaves it out of Starter, with pricing on quote only. Loop publishes open pricing with no AI component. Reapit doesn’t publish AI pricing. Any agency comparing platforms should model total cost of ownership including usage, not the headline licence fee.

Is AI governance important for estate agents?

Yes, and more so in 2027. HMRC’s most recent published list of non-compliant businesses recorded 170 AML penalties against estate agency businesses in a single six-month period, more than any other supervised sector. The Property Ombudsman reported in July 2026 that property complaints rose by more than 50% in the first half of 2026, partly because consumers are using AI to write detailed submissions. In September 2026 the government confirmed that property agents will need a licence and qualifications, overseen by an independent regulator. Platforms that log every AI action, attribute it and keep a person in the loop are better placed for that. Alto logs every AI action by design, and nothing reaches a client until an agent approves it.

What should estate agents look for in an AI CRM?

The most important questions are: does the AI finish the job or just draft text; can you change how it works and build your own; does it connect to live pipeline data; is every AI action auditable; who carries the governance risk when something goes wrong; and is it live today or still a promise. Ask any vendor for a live demonstration against your own data, and ask what the usage cost looks like at full volume. Our 2027 buyer’s guide includes a 100-point scorecard to help.