According to a new analysis from the Delta Media Real Estate AI & Leadership Survey, the average artificial intelligence (AI) “worry score” among brokerage leaders was 6.38 out of 10 in 2026, compared with 6.50 in 2024.
Concern declined to 5.80 in 2025 before rebounding this year.
The share of leaders assigning AI risk a high worry score of 8, 9 or 10 followed a similar pattern, falling from 42.4% in 2024 to 33.7% in 2025 before rising to 37.9% in 2026.
“One reason AI worry may be rebounding is that the decisions are getting bigger,” said Michael Minard, CEO and owner of Delta Media Group. “Brokerages are moving beyond simple AI tools toward agentic AI, automation and systems that can take action.”
The 2026 survey was the first in the three-year series to ask brokerage leaders about agentic AI tools capable of automating tasks. While the survey does not establish that agentic AI caused the increase in concern, its emergence adds new questions around compliance, data security, liability and accountability when AI systems take action.
The findings also show that AI concerns vary depending on the leader and the size of the brokerage.
Among female brokerage leaders, 71.4% identified compliance with real estate regulations as an AI concern, compared with 39.1% of male respondents. Data privacy and security was also a greater concern among women, cited by 65.7% compared with 48.4% of men.
Male leaders, meanwhile, were more likely to cite uncertainty surrounding AI costs and return on investment, with 51.6% identifying it as a concern compared with 28.6% of female respondents.
Brokerage size also influenced the types of concerns leaders reported. Among firms with 101 or more agents, the leading concerns were data privacy and security, integration with existing systems, cost and ROI uncertainty, and training agents and staff.
Smaller firms with 20 or fewer agents were far more focused on regulatory compliance, with 75% identifying it as a concern. Half also cited training agents and staff, while data privacy and security ranked as a concern for 43.8% of respondents.
Larger brokerages appear to be more focused on the challenges of deploying AI across multiple systems, integrations and data sources, while smaller firms are particularly concerned with maintaining regulatory compliance with fewer internal resources dedicated to technology, security and governance.
“AI vendors are not interchangeable,” Minard said. “Brokerages need to look beyond features and ask harder questions about security, privacy, compliance, integration and ongoing governance.”
The analysis is based on more than 100 brokerage leader responses each year from 2024 through 2026.
Gender analysis included 64 male and 35 female respondents, while the brokerage-size comparison included 16 respondents from firms with 20 or fewer agents and 67 respondents from firms with 101 or more agents.
This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.
