Written by: Steve Marcinuk

“In about three to five years, every agent who currently uses AI effectively will gain from it. When they’re selling 10 properties a year, they’re probably going to sell 30 to 40 properties a year,” predicts Biju Ashokan, CEO of prop tech company Radius.

In a real estate market experiencing its most challenging period in nearly three decades, with 2025’s first quarter showing “the lowest in the last 28 years” according to Ashokan, independent brokerages are finding a competitive edge through artificial intelligence. The technology isn’t just helping them survive—it’s positioning them to thrive when the market rebounds.

The Independent Advantage

For Ashokan, the journey to creating Radius began with firsthand experience of the challenges independent brokerages face. As the former CEO of a small brokerage that grew “from zero to 50 agents quite quickly,” he recognized that developing proprietary AI tools, lead nurturing systems, and transaction management technology for just 50 agents wasn’t economically viable.

“We were profitable, but it wasn’t enough to fund the engineering aspects of products,” Ashokan explains. This realization led to an exit from his first venture and the founding of Radius, built specifically to empower independent brokerages with enterprise-level technology.

The timing is strategic. As Ashokan points out, the traditional brokerage model needs to demo

nstrate clearer value: “Why does a brokerage exist? If you’re buying a property and selling a property, why are you paying a commission to a brokerage? The agents are doing most of the work for you.”

His point isn’t that brokerages are unnecessary, but rather that they must bring more to the table to justify their commission split—and that’s precisely where technology comes in. Radius provides the technological infrastructure that brokerages need to offer real value to their agents, helping them operate more effectively while justifying the commission structure—a model that’s attracting forward-thinking real estate professionals.

Meet Mel: The AI Assistant Enhancing Client Experiences

At the core of Radius’s offering is Mel, a sophisticated AI assistant designed specifically for real estate professionals. Mel serves as both a reactive and proactive tool that streamlines agent workflows while enhancing the client experience.

“It is our AI assistant, and it is both reactionary and proactive,” Ashokan explains. “When you have questions for Mel, it tells you anything about real estate. We’ve trained it with all the real estate information, documents, everything.”

Mel goes beyond simply answering questions. The system analyzes client behavior—what properties they view, how long they spend looking at listings, which homes they favorite, and the content of their messages—to build a comprehensive understanding of their preferences. This enables highly personalized property recommendations and faster, more informed responses than traditional agent-only interactions could provide.

Read the full article on the Keycrew website here.