FirstTeam and Purlin on avoiding AI mistakes: ‘Some stuff actually creates more work’

FirstTeam Real Estate, a California powerhouse that reported $6.12 billion in 2025 volume across 5,978 transactions — good enough for national ranks of No. 34 and No. 67, respectively — has partnered with Purlin to deploy an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered operating system across the brokerage.The integration brings together PurlinOS, Purlin Close and Purlin Offer & Negotiate into a single platform for contracts, negotiations, transactions and client communications. Agents can interact via voice, text, email and chatbot.Lauren Henss, vice president of marketing and strategic initiatives at FirstTeam, and Tim Quirk, chief revenue officer at Purlin, sat down with HousingWire to discuss the state of broker AI adoption. They touched on what distinguishes successful integrations from mere software layers and how brokerages can avoid costly mistakes. Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Jonathan Delozier: What evidence are both of you seeing across the industry that AI is producing measurable improvements that can actually be seen on an everyday basis? Tim Quirk: I think it’s incremental depending on who you’re talking to. You’ve got individual r...