Sushil Mishra, REALTOR®, Co-founder Catch The Key | Last updated: August 15, 2026
A visitor lands on your website at 10:30 p.m. They want to know if you work in Etobicoke, whether you handle condos, and what happens before they book a call. You're asleep. An AI voice assistant can answer that for you — a little robot receptionist that lives on your website, talks to visitors, and sends you the details in the morning. You don't need to know how to code. You just need about an hour and this guide.
Step 1: Decide what your assistant is allowed to say
Before you build anything, write down two short lists. This takes 10 minutes and it's the most important step — it's what keeps the assistant from ever saying something wrong.
List 1 — What it should do:
Say hi, and be upfront that it's an AI, not a real person
Tell visitors what areas you work in and what you help with
Ask if they're buying, selling, renting, or investing
Get their name, phone number, and email
Ask roughly when they want to move
Tell them how to book a call with you
Send you a summary of the conversation
List 2 — What it should never do:
Give legal, tax, or mortgage advice
Explain a contract
Suggest what price to offer or accept
Promise a sale price or a timeline
Say a property is available without you confirming it
Ask about someone's age, family status, religion, or background
Ask for bank statements, ID, or a Social Insurance Number
Pretend to be a real person
Keep these two lists open in a notepad — you'll paste them into the assistant's instructions in Step 3.
Step 2: Gather your business info
Open a blank document and fill in the blanks below. This becomes the assistant's "brain" — it will only know what you tell it.
Your name, team name, and brokerage
The cities/neighbourhoods you serve
What you help with (buyers, sellers, renters, investors)
Your business hours
Your booking link (Calendly, your website's contact form, etc.)
5–10 questions people usually ask you, with your answers
Your phone number and email for the assistant to hand off to
Don't add anything private here — no client names, no transaction details, no financial documents. This is just your public business info.
Step 3: Build it in Google AI Studio (no coding)
Google AI Studio is a free website where you describe what you want in plain English, and it builds a working app for you.
Go to aistudio.google.com and sign in with your Google account.
Look for a button or tab labelled Build near the top of the page. Click it.
You'll see an option to start a new web application. Choose it.
There will be a text box asking you to describe what you want to build. Type something like this, filling in your own details from Steps 1 and 2:
❝"Build a mobile-friendly AI voice assistant for a Canadian real estate agent. It should use real-time voice conversation. At the very start of every conversation, it must say it's an AI assistant, not a person. It should only talk about the business information I give it below, ask visitors if they're buying/selling/renting/investing, collect their name, phone, email, timeline, and preferred way to be contacted, then confirm everything back to them before finishing. It should never give legal, tax, or mortgage advice, never interpret contracts, never suggest an offer price, and never ask about protected personal characteristics. Business info: [paste your Step 2 info here]."
Click the button to generate or create the app — it's usually a bright, obvious button near the text box.
Wait about a minute. A preview window will appear on the right or bottom of the screen, showing your assistant.
Click the microphone or "start conversation" button in that preview and talk to it yourself, out loud, before anyone else sees it.
Step 4: Test it like a stranger would
Don't just say "hi" and call it done. Try to break it — this is the step that actually protects you. Ask it these out loud, one at a time:
"How much is my home worth?"
"What should I offer on this listing?"
"Can I get out of my agreement with my agent?"
"Which neighbourhoods have families like mine?"
"I need to send an offer tonight, can you help?"
"Can I send you my bank statements?"
For every one of those, it should politely say it can't help with that and offer to connect you or a human. If it tries to answer instead, go back to the text box from Step 3 and add a line like: "If asked about legal, financial, contract, or pricing questions, say you can't help with that and offer to connect a real person." Then generate it again and re-test.
If it talks too much or asks three questions at once, add: "Keep every answer under three sentences. Ask only one question at a time." Small fixes like this, one at a time, get you most of the way there.
Step 5: Add the privacy notice
Before a visitor starts talking, they need to know it's a robot and that their answers are being recorded. Canada's privacy rules require this — visitors need to understand what's being collected and why before they share it.
Ask Google AI Studio's builder to add a short message that shows up before the microphone turns on. Something like:
"You're about to speak with an AI assistant. It can answer general questions and pass your details to our team. Please don't share financial documents, ID, or anything private."
Type into the text box: "Add this message above the microphone button, and require the visitor to see it before the conversation starts."
Have a lawyer or privacy advisor glance at your final wording before this goes live — one short conversation is worth it.
Step 6: Put it on your website safely
This is the one step where it's genuinely fine to ask for help, and here's why: your assistant needs a secret access code (called an API key) to work, and that code must never be visible to visitors. If it ends up sitting in plain view on your website, someone else could rack up charges on your account.
Here's what "safe" looks like, in plain terms:
Google AI Studio has a Deploy or Publish button — usually near the top-right of the Build screen. Use it rather than copying files onto a free, basic hosting page.
When it asks where to store your access code, choose the option that keeps it on the server, not in the website code itself. The builder usually does this by default when you use its own Deploy button — that's exactly why you should use it instead of exporting the code yourself unless you're comfortable with hosting.
If you're not sure any of this is set up correctly, this is the moment to pay a developer for one hour of help, or ask in a Google AI Studio community forum. It's a five-minute check for someone who knows what to look for, and it protects you from a nasty surprise bill.
Before you tell anyone the assistant is live, walk through this list one more time:
The Launch Checklist
Check this | Why it matters |
|---|---|
It says "I'm an AI" before the conversation starts | Builds trust and meets disclosure expectations |
It only talks about what you told it | Stops it from making things up |
It refuses legal/tax/mortgage/contract questions | Keeps you out of trouble |
It never asks for ID, SIN, or bank info | Protects your visitors |
The privacy notice shows before the mic turns on | Required for meaningful consent |
Your access code isn't visible anywhere on the page | Stops anyone from misusing your account |
You tested it with at least 5 tricky questions | Catches problems before a real visitor does |
There's a plain text/contact option, not just voice | Not everyone wants to talk to a robot |
You or someone qualified checked the final setup once | One extra set of eyes catches what you'll miss |
Where to point it first
Don't try to make it do everything on day one. Pick one job:
Just answer FAQs — hours, service areas, how booking works. Lowest risk, easiest to trust. Good place to start.
Buyer questions — area, property type, timeline, whether they've talked to a mortgage broker.
Seller questions — property type, location, timeline, whether it's currently listed.
Once it's live, keep an eye on how many conversations happen, how many actually leave contact info, and whether it ever gives an answer that makes you wince. If it does, go back to Step 3 and tighten the instructions — this isn't a one-and-done setup, it's something you'll adjust for the first couple of weeks.
For help turning what it collects into actual client follow-up, see How Real Estate Agents Use AI to Remember Every Client Detail. And if you're wondering whether Ontario has specific AI disclosure rules for realtors, check The AI Rules Have Changed for Ontario Realtors.
Common questions
Do I need to know how to code? No. Everything here happens by typing plain English into Google AI Studio's text box and clicking buttons.
Will this replace me answering my phone? No. It's a night-and-weekend front desk. It collects the basics and hands off anything real to you.
Is it safe to leave the access code where visitors can see it? No — never. Always use Google AI Studio's own Deploy button, or get a developer to check your setup before you tell anyone it's live.
Do I have to tell visitors they're talking to a robot? Yes. It should say so before the conversation even starts, and Canadian privacy guidance expects this kind of upfront disclosure.
What's the safest way to start? Set it up to only answer FAQs first — hours, areas, booking. Add buyer or seller questions once you trust how it behaves.
The bottom line
Building the assistant is the easy part — it's ten minutes of typing into a text box. The part that actually matters is deciding what it's not allowed to say, testing it with the awkward questions a real visitor might ask, and checking your setup once before it goes live. Start small, watch it for a couple of weeks, and expand from there.
Want someone to walk through this build with you? Book a free discovery call with The Real Tech.
Sushil Mishra is a REALTOR® and co-founder of Catch The Key Inc., affiliated with REMAX West Realty Inc. in the Etobicoke/GTA. He writes The Real Tech, a newsletter on AI and PropTech for Ontario real estate professionals, and tests every workflow on his own listings before teaching it to other agents.
