One-third of real estate listings are written with AI. Here's how to spot them.

• By Mike Heddle
• Posted Monday, Jun 29, 2026 9:22 am

One-third of real estate listings are written with AI. Here's how to spot them.

If you’ve been on the house hunt recently and wondered why a real estate ad had an unfamiliar tone, you may have been on to something. More than a third of rental and property ads in Canada are likely being written with artificial intelligence, a new report from an AI detection firm suggests.

The study, conducted by Originality.ai, looked at text from more than 15,000 rentals and 56,000 sales listings in the first two weeks of May, 2026.

Using its own AI tools, it detected that 37 per cent of listings likely used AI, while 30 per cent of listings were likely human. Thirty-three per cent were inconclusive because the ads fell under Originality.ai’s minimum requirement of 100 words.

Ads for a home for sale were more likely to be AI, with 41 per cent being marked as computer-written. Only 21 per cent of rental ads were flagged as having used AI.

The use of AI in real estate can be controversial. The technology has been used to dupe buyers with misleading photo edits, and realtors have been fined for this before.

But some realtors and experts say that AI, when used responsibly, can be an ideal tool for writing text descriptions.

“I haven’t worked in real estate, but I imagine the job is very social, very personable and interactive sales-based, and not so much a writing job,” said Michael Fraiman, one of the researchers who conducted the Originality.ai study.

“So it makes perfect sense and it’s a defensible use case for a realtor to turn to AI.”

Amanda Ku, a Calgary-based realtor, said using AI to complete listings saves her as much as 30 minutes in a process that usually takes between three to five hours.

AI also helps her understand the neighbourhood that a property is in, highlighting amenities such as schools, hospitals and trails.

“If AI can help me home down on that verbiage, it can really help me squeeze some time,” said Ms. Ku.

However, Mr. Fraiman doesn’t blame consumers who want to know when AI is used.

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