By River Davis
Honda Motor Co. is betting that the spread of hydrogen-powered commercial vehicles in the U.S. and China will help it turn a profit in a new business selling fuel-cell systems.
Honda said Thursday that it plans to begin selling fuel-cell systems–modules that make electricity to power a motor from hydrogen and air–in the mid-2020s. It targets sales of 60,000 units of the system in 2030, a level by which Senior Managing Executive Officer Shinji Aoyama said the business should be able to turn a profit.
At that scale, “it’s like counting one’s chickens before they’ve hatched, but I believe it will be commercially viable,” Mr. Aoyama said, speaking at a roundtable in Tokyo on Thursday.
High costs and limited charging infrastructure have thus far inhibited wide uptake of hydrogen-powered sedans such as Toyota Motor Corp.’s Mirai and Honda’s Clarity. Mr. Aoyama said he sees fuel-cell passenger cars playing a minor role in Honda’s 2040 zero-emission vehicle lineup.
Compared with batteries, fuel cells have higher energy density by weight and are viewed by some as a better option for powering commercial vehicles, which are heavy and travel long distances. With regard to Honda’s fuel-cell systems, “commercial trucks will be at the center, in terms of regions in America and China,” Mr. Aoyama said.
Write to River Davis at River.Davis@wsj.com
The Biden Administration has said the U.S. is in competition with China and restricted the ability of American businesses to sell high-end chip tech to China.
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BEIJING — A ban on U.S. investment in Chinese tech could drive up market volatility — but some sectors may escape untouched, Bank of America analysts said.
The White House is reportedly considering an executive order to ban U.S. investment into high-end Chinese tech, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, 5G and advanced semiconductors, according to a Politico report last week.
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It’s unclear whether or when such a rule might take effect. The report indicated ongoing internal debate within the U.S. government.
“If there were a strict investment ban on US investors, it could create a significant supply of shares over the grace period and hence potential large volatility in the near term,” Bank of America’s Hong Kong-based research analysts said in a note Tuesday. “Potential long-term impact is less clear.”
“Though AI is quite prevalent in today’s online world, companies that don’t have a large business in external AI solutions [will] likely see a lower chance [of] being targeted by the U.S. side,” the analysts said.
“Online travel companies, pureplay game and music companies, online verticals in auto and real estate, niche eCommerce specialties, and logistics-focus eCommerce companies are some of the examples,” the Bank of America report said.
The analysts did not name specific stocks.
Chinese stocks have recently tried to rebound after a plunge in the last two years.
The country ended its stringent zero-Covid policy in December. In the second half of last year, the U.S. and China also reached an audit deal that significantly lowered the risk Chinese companies would have to delist from U.S. stock exchanges.
Some of the U.S.-listed Chinese stocks with the largest U.S. institutional investor ownership on a percentage basis included KFC operator Yum China, livestreaming company Joyy and pharmaceutical company Zai Lab, according to a Jan. 25 Morgan Stanley report.
Semiconductor industry company Daqo New Energy had nearly 27% U.S. institutional ownership, Morgan Stanley said.
The data showed Alibaba had the most U.S. institutional ownership by dollar value, but it only accounted for 8.2% of the stock.
In a separate report Monday, Morgan Stanley equity strategist Laura Wang pointed out the Biden administration has focused on targeting tech with ties to the Chinese military.
She noted signs of stabilization in the U.S.-China relationship, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned visit to Beijing in the coming days and the potential for Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit the U.S. during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit — set to be held in San Francisco in November.
The White House and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Politico report.
— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
Since its release in November of 2022 by OpenAI, ChatGPT has garnered worldwide attention for its efficient and precise ability to write emails, essays, poetry and even generate lines of code based on a prompt.
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Controversy has surrounded its uses and raised questions about whether or not using the tool counts as cheating, with some schools banning the program altogether.
However, some professionals are grateful for its efficiency, with an increasing number of real estate agents boasting about how ChatGPT has made their lives easier, CNN reported.
“It saved me so much time,” JJ Johannes, a realtor in Iowa told the outlet. He noted that although he had to make a few edits before publishing a listing made through ChatGPT, it has been an overall game-changer. “It’s not perfect but it was a great starting point. My background is in technology and writing something eloquent takes time. This made it so much easier.”
Johannes isn’t the only one utilizing the new tool at work. Several other real estate professionals told CNN that they not only use ChatGPT to write listings but also to draft social media posts and legal documents.
“I’ve been using it for more than a month, and I can’t remember the last time something has wowed me this much,” Andres Asion, a broker at Miami Real Estate Group, told the outlet.
Although ChatGPT is free for the time being, OpenAI is considering a $42 monthly charge. However, the price won’t stop realtors like Asion, who says the program has made his job significantly easier.
“I would easily pay $100 or $200 a year for something like this,” he told CNN. “I’d be crazy not to.”
CNN
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If you came across a four bedroom, 3.5 bathroom home listed for sale recently on a quiet cul-de-sac in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, you might not think twice about the online listing. It included typical real estate descriptions like “ideal for entertaining” and “ample space for relaxation.”
But JJ Johannes, the realtor for the home, created the description in less than five seconds by typing a few keywords into ChatGPT, a viral new AI chatbot tool that can generate elaborate responses to user prompts. It’s a task, he said, that would otherwise have taken him an hour or more to write on his own.
“It saved me so much time,” Johannes told CNN, noting he made a few tweaks and edits to ChatGPT’s work before publishing it. “It’s not perfect but it was a great starting point. My background is in technology and writing something eloquent takes time. This made it so much easier.”
Johannes is among the real estate agents experimenting with ChatGPT since it was released publicly in late November. Some residential and commercial agents told CNN it has already changed the way they work, from writing listings and social media posts to drafting legal documents. It could also be used to automate repetitive tasks such as answering frequently asked questions and doing complex calculations.
ChatGPT is trained on vast amounts of online data in order to generate responses to user prompts. It has written original essays, stories, song lyrics and research paper abstracts that fooled some scientists. Some CEOs have used it to write emails or do accounting work. It even passed an exam at an Ivy League school. (It has, however, raised concerns among some for its potential to enable cheating and for its inaccuracies.)
In less than two months, ChatGPT has sparked discussions around its potential to disrupt various industries, from publishing to law. But it’s already having a tangible impact on how a number of real estate agents around the country do their jobs – where much of the written work can be formulaic and time consuming – to the extent that some can no longer imagine working without it.
“I’ve been using it for more than a month, and I can’t remember the last time something has wowed me this much,” said Andres Asion, a broker from the Miami Real Estate Group.
Recently, a client reached out to Asion with a problem: the woman had moved into a pre-construction home and couldn’t open her windows. She had attempted to contact the developer for months with no response. Asion ran a copy of one of her emails through ChatGPT, asking it to rewrite it with an emphasis on the liability implications.
“ChatGPT wrote it as a legal issue and all of a sudden, the developer showed up at her house,” he said.
Asion has also used the tool to draft legally binding addendums and other documents, and sent them to lawyers for approval. “I fine-tune all kinds of drafts with ChatGPT,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll tell it to make it shorter or funnier, and it gives you so many samples to pick and edit from.”
ChatGPT is free for now, but OpenAI, the company behind it, is reportedly considering a monthly charge of $42. Asion said “it’s not even a question” he would pay for access. “I would easily pay $100 or $200 a year for something like this,” he said. “I’d be crazy not to.”
Frank Trelles, a commercial real estate agent at State Street Realty in Miami, said he’d also pay to keep using the tool, which has already impacted the way he does business. “As soon as I tried it out, I was sold,” he said. “I went to sign up for a package, thinking it would be at least $100 a month, and was blown away that it was free. Nothing in this world is free though – and that made me a bit nervous.”
Trelles said he uses ChatGPT to look up the permitted uses for certain land and zones in Miami-Dade County, and calculate what mortgage payments or return on investment might be for a client, which typically involve formulas and mortgage calculators.
“I can be in a car with a client when they ask me what their mortgage payments might be,” said Trelles. “I can ask ChatGPT what a mortgage payment would be on a $14 million purchase at a 7.2% interest rate advertised over 25 years with two origination points at closing, and in two seconds, it gives me that information. It also explains how it got the answer. It’s amazing.”
There are some limitations, however. The tool has, for example, struggled with some basic math before. Trelles said it’s helpful for approximations on the go, not for exact numbers.
Serge Reda, a commercial real estate executive and adjunct professor at the Fordham Real Estate Institute, said some use cases for ChatGPT are better than others. ChatGPT may help save brokers time when writing listings or responses, but automating client responses may not be the best tactic because generating leads and closing transactions typically requires a personalized approach.
“It’s accessible to everyone right now because it’s free and they can get a taste of how this powerful tool can work. But there are definitely significant limitations,” he said.
While ChatGPT has generated a wave of interest among realtors, incorporating artificial intelligence in the real estate market isn’t entirely new. Listing site Zillow, for example, has used AI for 3D mapping, creating automatic floor plans and for its Zestimate tool, which can scan pictures to see if a home has hardwood floors or stainless steel appliances so its price estimation better reflects market conditions. Earlier this week, Zillow rolled out an AI-feature that lets potential buyers conduct searches in a more natural language (something that’s long been mastered by Google).
Matt Kreamer, a spokesperson for Zillow, said the real estate industry has been slower to innovate, but “I think we’ll be seeing much bigger strides very soon.” He said Zillow sees no clear concerns with agents using ChatGPT to help streamline the work they already do and save time.
“We aren’t promoting or weary of ChatGPT but are interested in how it’s being used and watching it,” he said.
Although it’s too early to say if the tool will become a mainstay in real estate, realtor Johannes believes AI in general will transform his industry and others.
“It may not be with ChatGPT,” he said, “but I believe some form of artificial intelligence like this will become a big part of how we work and live our lives.”
On Wednesday, Vermilion County Presiding Judge Thomas M. O’Shaughnessy announced that the county was awarded a second technology grant in the sum of $88,058.31 from a Technology Modernization Funding program offered by the Illinois Supreme Court and the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts.
The second grant follows an initial grant received during February 2022 in the sum of $303,811.80.
Judge O’Shaughnessy, in announcing the second award, explained that “during the past several year, Vermilion County Tech Services personnel, Karen Rudd and Brian Talbott, and the Court Administrator, Cindy Savalick, along with Building & Grounds Director, Jennifer Jenkins, developed a Courthouse Technology Upgrade plan for significant technology upgrades for the four jury trial courtrooms in the Rita B. Garman Vermilion County Courthouse. The plan provided for enhanced sound systems, improved internet connectivity, and a system of computers and monitors for the presentation of electronic evidence. The second award, which was submitted by Tech Services, will pay for electrical networking and wiring infrastructure for the project, along with computer equipment for the court’s technology clerk, who will operate the new evidence system. The grant also included a new mobile app and court calendar system upgrades for the Circuit Clerk’s office.”
O’Shaughnessy remarked: “The Supreme Court of Illinois and its administrative office have done an exceptional job in identifying the trial courts’ needs in utilizing technology as a means of maintaining court access, while making funds available to the courts to meet those needs. This funding allows us to complete the technology upgrades to the Courthouse systems which began during the early days of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic when equipment for remote hearings was first acquired. These upgrades will greatly improve the trial capacities and environment of our jury courtrooms. The judiciary again extends its thanks and congratulations to Tech Services for their hard work in planning these important and substantial upgrades to our courtrooms and securing this second critical grant. And we appreciate the support for this plan offered by the County Board and its Chairman, Larry Baughn.”
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionising real estate, with tools such as 3D virtual tour software CAPTUR3D and automated value estimation tech Zestimate already transforming the nature of an agent’s work. The question is whether AI can replace real estate agents.
The answer lies in AI’s potential to combine with human intelligence and skills. Computers and robots can be used right across the real estate value chain to improve processes by absorbing huge amounts of data and creating insights from it. Then it’s up to people to make the most of the value this creates.
Exploring the options
There’s an array of tech that agents can already use. Tools such as computer vision can analyse images such as aerial photographs to identify the condition of a building. Geographic information systems (GIS) can scrutinise geographical data such as maps and satellite imagery, to identify patterns and trends across an area. Predictive analytics can forecast future demand trends, to identify areas where house price growth is likely.
Natural language processing (NLP) can be used to investigate social media and other online data sources to identify buyer preferences. The NLP tool that’s likely to get the most attention this year is called ChatGPT. This is a chatbot that responds to questions, queries and requests much like a human can, drawing on mammoth banks of data. Its ability to learn is exponential.
“For real estate agents, tools like ChatGPT are able to generate more value from the extensive knowledge agents have of their portfolios. For example, it can rapidly create property descriptions from a simple prompt with basic parameters,” Melbourne tech studio Phoria chief executive Trent Clews-de Castella says.
Giving ChatGPT a task …
And the AI’s response …
Clews-de Castella says AI tools such as ChatGPT will be able to cut down the hours agents spend creating compelling listings. This is time that can be repurposed with potential and current vendors and buyers.
“AI is capable of a lot more than just writing listings for agents. It can help prepare legal documents and monitor lead generation for property listings. It can digest big data sets and identify trends like demographics and crime rates; patterns that can impact the desirability of an area and marketing strategies.”
For example, if AI can show a suburb is demographically skewed towards young families, then agents can make sure marketing for properties in that suburb showcases schools, parks and other family-friendly features.
“All of this can be integrated with a web-based application and used by agents to make data-driven decisions. The beauty of these tools is that as their capabilities evolve, we’ll discover new and innovative ways to use them,” says Clews-de Castella.
Aside from estimating house prices, commercial property development and finance firm Salvest managing director Anthony Ferraro expects AI to be used to estimate rental growth and consumers’ debt levels for home financing. He says tech will shake up the industry in a number of other ways.
“Speech recognition can assist the sales process by gathering data to measure the stress and emotional levels of vendors and buyers. This can provide the agent with resources to close the sale. We will also see virtual agents emerge, where the vendor becomes the agent, drawing on machine learning to assist in the buyer qualification process.
Should agents be worried?
While agents reject the notion they will be replaced by AI, some of the tasks they are accustomed to performing will be done by machines in the future.
Clews-de Castella acknowledges AI has the edge on agents in some respects. “AI is fast, cheap and accessible. It can help remove emotional biases from one of the most stressful decisions buyers make. But what agents bring is empathy. They understand your story, what matters to you, what motivates you and what they can do to support you. It’s that human interface for which an AI platform isn’t a substitute. Yet.”
Similarly, BeKonstructive Marketing managing director Bek Drayton says there’s a lot more to being a real estate agent than creating basic property listings, which can be done by a robot.
“Smart agents will use AI to create the base of their listings and present the facts. Then it’s up to the agent to edit and weave a story through the listing that builds an emotional connection with the reader. This will mean agents can spend more time building relationships with clients.”
▲ The age of the real estate agent is far from over.
Undercover Agent founder Chris Bellesini sees AI as a marketing tool that may shake up property sales, before becoming just another part of the property buying and selling process.
“There’s been considerable advancement in technology in the real estate industry, but trends come and go.
“Large portals such as realestate.com.au and domain.com.au know what we are looking for and are very clever in showing us properties that may suit our needs. What they don’t know is your emotional connection to a property or whether you want to buy it because you already own the block next door, so you would be prepared to pay more.
“Also, people sell infrequently, so although they may not want to use an agent, they are comfortable with them. Let’s face it, agents don’t want to be replaced and whenever challenged they have been able to prove their worth.”
He cites Purple Bricks, a UK online real estate agent with a flat fee rather than commission-based model, as an example of a business that wanted to shake up the sector, claiming traditional agents were overrated and overpaid. “In Australia they lasted about 18 months.”
Bellesini believes there’s a range of reasons real estate agents still have a future.
“AI will not have all the data needed to know what a buyer is prepared to spend on a property.
“A skilled agent can also note conversations of importance to extract the best price and read body language and tone to pick the handful of potential buyers out of a group of, say, 30 acquirers pretty quickly.”
Additionally, he notes vendors feel more confident having a professional on their team when dealing with their largest asset. “Selling is a stressful process and having a human to deliver information and know what to do next is important.”
Ultimately, rather than thinking about how technology can replace agents, it’s probably better to look at how technology can enhance the work they do.
AI can be an invaluable tool to streamline the journey to sell a property and to empower buyers to make the most informed decisions possible. So agents can rest easy; they are unlikely to be completely replaced by a machine.
For the moment.
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London
CNN
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The Crown Estate, a British commercial property portfolio historically belonging to the monarch, began court proceedings against Twitter over the tech giant’s alleged non-payment of rent in its London offices, a spokesperson of the property business told CNN on Monday.
The Crown Estate is run by an independent board and boasts a collection of commercial buildings and land which generate profits that are collected by the British government for public spending.
According to the Crown Estate spokesperson, the legal action follows previous contact with Twitter regarding the rental arrears on its office space at 20 Air Street, London. Discussions between the companies are ongoing, the spokesperson added.
CNN has reached out to Twitter for comment.
Twitter currently faces at least one other lawsuit over unpaid rent. A commercial landlord is suing Twitter for breach of contract after the company allegedly failed to pay rent for one of its offices in San Francisco.
The lawsuit concerns Twitter’s office space at 650 California Street, not its main headquarters on Market Street. But it came after media reports said Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, had stopped paying rent on Twitter’s office space globally — including for its headquarters — and had told employees not to pay company vendors, in an apparent effort to cut costs.
Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion, including a substantial amount of debt financing.
– CNN’s Brian Fung contributed to this report
Chairperson of the Egyptian Commercial Service (ECS) Yahya Elwathik Bellah discussed on Saturday with Head of Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunication (CIT) Khaled Ibrahim an ambitious plan to overcome obstacles that impede the development and promotion of Egyptian exports of software and information technology to African countries.
In a press statement on Saturday, the ECS said that this meeting comes within the framework of the existing cooperation between the ECS and the various state agencies to support Egyptian exports in accessing foreign markets and create new opportunities for exporters to help them reach new global markets, especially African markets, in order to increase their competitiveness capacity. In addition, increase their exports in line with the state plan to increase the volume of Egyptian exports to EGP 100bn and the strategy of the Ministry of Trade and Industry to double Egyptian exports to Africa.
Egypt’s digital exports grew during the year 2021/2022 to reach $4.9bn, compared to $4.5bn in 2020/2021, and it is intended to triple exports of this strategic sector by 2026.
Ali Pasha, Minister Plenipotentiary for Trade and Director of the Department of African Countries and Organizations at ECS; Heba Gamea, Director General of CIT; and Ahmed El Sobky, First Deputy of CIT, participated at the meeting.
© 2022 Daily News Egypt. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
RIYADH — Minister of Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing Majid Bin Abdullah Al-Hogail has affirmed that the “Real Estate Future Forum” keeps pace with government trends in the real estate sector, and contributes to attracting foreign companies to invest in the Kingdom’s real estate sector.
Investments in housing sector, in particular, is evident given that this sector represents one of the national economy’s main pillars.
Al-Hogail said: “The forum represents an opportunity to exchange regional and international experiences and viewpoints to benefit optimally from them, as it represents an intellectual platform, at the local and international levels.
“The forum is set to discuss the sector’s present and future, per a practical and scientific concept and method based on dialogue and discussion, and the exchange of ideas and opinions that boost the real estate sector.”
The minister stressed that the success of the outputs of the forum in its first edition posed a great challenge to continue this success in order to enhance this boom in the future.
He added that the forum represents a good opportunity to present the Kingdom’s experience and government efforts in developing and sustaining the real estate sector, especially the residential sector.
He said the forum reflects the efforts of the ministry’s achievements in developing the urban environment, humanizing cities, and smart and modern building technologies.
He noted the estimated efforts undertaken by the private sector in real estate, especially the residential sector, indicates that it is a strategic partner for the public sector.
He said this partnership is based on devising practical solutions to inject housing products that meet the needs of citizens and contribute to raising the rate of Saudi families home ownership to 70 percent by 2030, per the objectives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, in the housing sector.
The “Real Estate Future Forum”, in its second edition, and its accompanying activities, such as the exhibition and the real estate hackathon, will be launched in Riyadh, from Jan. 23-25, 2023.
More than 30 countries and 100 speakers and decision makers, who represent several local and international public and private sectors, are expected to participate. — SPA