Quantifying the Rising AI + Portal Obsession
Every major real estate portal just discovered AI at the same time — and they all want you to know about it.
Why it matters: When everyone starts saying "AI, AI, AI" with growing enthusiasm, it becomes harder to tell who's building real capability and who's just dressing up investor decks.
Rightmove’s 2025 investor day presentation is a masterclass in AI density: 64 AI mentions across 48 slides.
40 percent of slides mention AI, with no fewer than 28 AI sparkle icons sprinkled across the deck.
Just the single slide below – perhaps created by AI? – has nine mentions of AI, one “copilot,” one “agentic,” and four AI sparkles.
Portals around the world are all talking about AI in their investor presentations and financial results – some more than others.
On a normalized basis, Germany’s Scout24 is the loudest, followed by the U.K.’s Rightmove and Australia’s REA Group. Zillow, not so much (but it is hosting an AI day).
The sources are all from February 2026, and include full year financial results for Hemnet, Rightmove, and Scout24, half-year results for REA Group, and Zillow’s Strategy Presentation (swapping out for its full year results yields a negligible difference).
Tracking portal AI Mania over time is revealing — a year ago, almost nobody was saying the A-word.
To its credit, Rightmove was really the only portal talking about AI last year; Hemnet didn’t even mention it.
Since then, all portals have massively turned up the AI volume, with the biggest gainers Scout24 (up 8.5x) and REA Group (up 7.8x).
The concern is when AI talk starts crowding out the metrics that actually matter.
All portals face a delicate balance between appeasing investors by talking about AI, and working on the more boring aspects of the business that actually move the needle.
For example, Rightmove’s talk of AI has skyrocketed while mentions of key terms like ARPA (average revenue per advertiser) – the business’s primary driver of profitability – have declined.
The bottom line: Adding sparkle icons and saying “AI” dozens of times doesn't tell investors anything about whether AI is actually improving the business.
Rightmove's deck shows the tension: AI mentions per 1,000 words doubled from FY24 to FY25 while ARPA mentions — the metric that actually drives the P&L — declined to fewer than half the mentions.
As in many hype cycles, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s a metaphorical AI sparkle icon — the volume feels overwhelming and, in some cases, is drowning out more important conversations.
(The AI signal vs. noise problem is very real, which is one reason I’m putting together my own AI Conference in May: Further 2026.)
