FAQs/How does AI work here?
How it works

How does AI
work here?

What RAIA OS and RAIA™ Protocol actually do — explained for estate agents, not engineers. No jargon. No hype.

No portal requiredOpen standardYour portfolio, AI-readableFree to implement

The six things

What each part actually does.

🤖

Your Aigent.

The AI assistant you talk to every day — answering enquiries, scheduling viewings, chasing rent. Runs on RAIA OS. Knows your portfolio. Replies in your name.

⚙️

RAIA OS.

The operating system coordinating all the moving parts — your listings, compliance jobs, tenancy lifecycle, documents, keys, contacts. Like iOS for your iPhone, but for your agency.

🔗

RAIA™ Protocol.

The open standard that lets AI assistants talk to any agent's portfolio in a common language — addresses, prices, photos, lease terms. Like email: Gmail talks to Outlook because they follow the same rules.

🚫

No portal.

Because AI assistants can query your portfolio directly via RAIA Protocol, you don't need a portal to be discoverable. The AI finds you. No monthly listing fee required.

🌐

Open standard.

RAIA Protocol is MIT licensed — free to implement, free to build on, no single company owns it. EstateAigents pioneered it and runs on it, but anyone can use it.

🏛️

Governed by a CIC.

Move Home Organisation CIC — a UK Community Interest Company — holds the RAIA trademark in trust. A CIC exists to benefit a community, not shareholders. It can't be converted into a profit-making entity.

Step by step

A tenant finds your property.

Here's what actually happens when someone uses an AI assistant to search for a property on RAIA.

01

A tenant asks their AI assistant.

Someone types "find me a 2-bed flat in Clapham under £2,000" into their AI assistant — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or any other.

02

The AI speaks RAIA Protocol.

The assistant connects to the RAIA Protocol server and asks for properties matching those criteria — using the shared language every RAIA-compliant agent understands.

03

Your portfolio responds directly.

EstateAigents answers on your behalf — your verified properties, with accurate prices, photos, lease terms, and your compliance signals. No portal intermediary.

04

Your Aigent handles the enquiry.

The tenant's message comes into your Aigent inbox. Your Aigent responds, qualifies the lead, books the viewing. You see it in your dashboard.

05

No portal took a fee.

That entire discovery-to-enquiry flow happened without any legacy portal sitting in the middle. The saving stays with you.

The difference

With and without RAIA.

Without RAIA

01AI assistant can't find your portfolio
02Tenant falls back to portal search
03Portal charges you £1,500–£3,000/mo
04You recover cost through higher fees
05Landlord and tenant absorb the margin

With RAIA

01AI assistant queries your portfolio directly
02Finds your verified properties instantly
03No portal. No toll. No listing fee.
04Enquiry lands in your Aigent inbox
05You keep the margin.

Questions

Common questions.

Does this replace legacy portals?

Not overnight — and RAIA doesn't require you to leave. You can keep your existing portal listings and add RAIA on top. As more people use AI to find properties, RAIA becomes an additional discovery channel that costs you nothing per listing. Legacy portals become optional over time, not overnight.

Do my clients need to know any of this?

No. From their perspective, they just got a fast response and a booked viewing. They don't need to know the words RAIA or Protocol. The technology is invisible. The result — quick, professional, accurate responses — is what they notice.

What data does the AI actually see about my properties?

Property information — addresses, prices, photos, available dates, lease terms, floor sizes. That's it. No landlord personal details, no tenant records, no financial transactions. RAIA Protocol enforces data minimisation by design.

What if the AI says something wrong about my property?

Your Aigent only replies based on the data in your EstateAigents portfolio. If a price or availability is wrong in your system, the response will reflect that — same as if a staff member read the wrong entry. Keep your portfolio data current and the AI stays accurate.

Who can build on RAIA Protocol?

Anyone. The specification is MIT licensed — free to read, implement, and build on. Any developer, any AI company, any portal (if they choose) can implement RAIA Protocol. That's the point. No single company — including EstateAigents — can own the standard.

Does any of this affect my current setup?

No changes needed. If you're on EstateAigents, your portfolio is already built on RAIA. You don't need to configure anything differently. The AI discoverability is there from day one.

What's the difference between RAIA OS and RAIA Protocol?

RAIA OS is the operating system for your agency — the day-to-day coordination of viewings, compliance, listings, enquiries, rent collection. You interact with it through EstateAigents. RAIA Protocol is the open standard underneath — the shared language that makes AI-to-AI property communication possible. OS is what you use. Protocol is what developers implement.

Want the full technical detail?

The complete RAIA™ Protocol specification — Agent Cards, MCP tools, A2A transport, governance — is published openly at estateaigents.org.

See what AI costs per conversation.

Token counts and pound estimates for real property conversations.