Video of the Week: Google Genie 3

OK, sitting comfortably?

Then let the next wave of AI wash over you ...

This is Google's Genie 3. You might think it looks a bit like their Veo 3 with amazing videos that within the space of a month or so we've become a bit blasé about. But this is actually something much more significant.

One of the things that has restrained AI to this point is its ability to construct coherent 'worlds' - to understand the laws of physics and not just mimic them from vast datasets of (eg) balls bouncing or kites flying. What Genie 3 is starting to make possible is the idea of 'world models' - where something is created in AI that behaves like our own world without having to be specifically emphasised in a prompt.

Examples include (as in the above video) painting a wall, moving away to look at something else then swinging back to look at the paint again. In previous iterations, that wall would be either blank, painted another colour or made of brick with a window in it. There was genuinely no consistency once you glanced away.

Now, it can remember. This is because it has a notion of a 'world' and that it is only showing part of that at any one time - the rest exists, persists, and is there when it's required later.

This opens up huge opportunities for the likes of video-gaming, tourist-mapping but also - think about it - for property too. If there is a coherent and reliable replica of a home that you're going to value then you can do some pretty solid research before you step foot inside the genuine article. Viewings can be graded - those that seem like tyre-kickers can wander round the virtual one at their leisure, whilst you save your time and energy for those that are going to be much more likely to progress.

Yes, of course there are potential challenges with this too - how will you get the conversation going to be able to discuss other properties that might be more appropriate for the applicant? How will you discover whether they have a property to sell too?

These are the same arguments against virtual tours that I heard loudly at the time (for some, they are still being made). Before that, it was too many images - that will definitely stop agents being able to upsell. The same was true with floorplans, with colour photos ... every step forwards has been met with howls of anguish about what that might mean for the 'traditional' (which is to say - 'has existed for around a decade') ways of exhibiting properties.

It's all going to change. And yes, we're all going to get better at dropping these appropriate questions and data gathering opportunities into the new way of doing things. AI will help with this too - and, in the end, we're going to be able to spend much more time on the human-to-human stuff with progressible leads that want to do business with us.

Don't fear the change - fear staying the same as everyone else.