What is an AI ISA?
An AI ISA is software that does the job of an inside sales agent: it works the leads in a real estate team's database, replies to them in writing around the clock, qualifies the ones who are ready, and hands those to a human agent.
ISA stands for inside sales agent, a role real estate teams hire to chase new leads fast and keep old ones warm, so licensed agents can spend their time in appointments. An AI ISA is that same function run by software. The good ones read a lead’s entire history before writing anything, work the whole database rather than the top of it, and stop the moment a person should take over.
What does an ISA actually do?
Five things, whether a person or software is doing them.
Answer fast
A new lead is worth the most in the minutes after they raise their hand. The ISA gets to them first.
Work the old ones
Most of a database is months or years old. A lead who goes quiet in March is still there in September.
Qualify
Budget, area, timeline, financing, whether they already have an agent. Enough that the agent knows who they are calling.
Hand off
Pass the ready ones to a licensed agent with the context attached, then get out of the way.
Keep the record straight
Notes, stages, tags and tasks in the CRM, so the next person to touch the lead is not starting over.
Human ISA, platform bot, or independent AI?
The term gets used for two different products. The difference that matters is who the software works for.
| Human ISA | Platform bot | Independent AI ISA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hours | A shift | Always on | Always on |
| Reach | The leads they can get through | The leads in that platform | The whole database, every day |
| Voice | Their own | The vendor’s | Your agents’ |
| Memory | What they wrote down | The current conversation | The lead’s entire record |
| Works for | Your team | The platform that sold it | Your team |
| Lives in | Your CRM | Its own product | Your CRM |
A platform bot runs that platform’s script on every lead, in the vendor’s voice, to qualify them for the vendor’s ecosystem. An independent AI ISA reads the record you already own and writes in your team’s voice, from your own numbers.
What separates a good AI ISA from a texting robot?
Mostly restraint. The hard part is not sending messages, it is knowing which one to send and when.
It should
- Read the lead’s full history before it writes, not just the last message.
- Compose each message for that person instead of filling in a template.
- Pace itself to the lead rather than to a calendar.
- Write what it learns back to the CRM your agents already work in.
- Hand off the moment a conversation deserves a person.
It should not
- Pretend to be a person, or deny being an assistant when asked directly.
- Text over an agent who is already in the conversation.
- Fire on a schedule regardless of what the lead said.
- Characterize a neighborhood or the people in it. That is a Fair Housing problem, not a style problem.
- Keep going after someone asks it to stop.
Common questions.
Comparisons of the alternatives: a human ISA, a website chatbot, drip campaigns, and every AI in the category.
Is an AI ISA the same as a chatbot?
Does an AI ISA replace a human ISA?
Will leads know they are texting an AI?
Is texting leads with AI legal?
What does an AI ISA cost?
Do I need to change CRMs to use one?
What does ISA stand for?
Substrait is an independent AI ISA that runs inside your CRM.
Live on Sierra Interactive and Follow Up Boss, with GoHighLevel connected. Your leads, your voice, your own numbers.