What does each tool do, job by job?
Find the row for the job that costs you the most time and read across. Every cell is the vendor's own claim, not a result from our testing.
| Job | ChatGPT | Lofty | Follow Up Boss | Reddy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Writing | Turns rough notes into polished writing. Drafts and edits messages, plans, and posts. | Cowork drafts emails, texts, call scripts, and campaigns. The AI Sales Agent writes replies to leads. | Smart messages suggest texts and emails based on a lead's activity. | Writes email as a draft in your own connected mailbox. You review and send it. |
| Leads and follow-up | Drafts the message. Lead outreach: not stated. | The AI Sales Agent handles outreach, qualifies leads, and books appointments by text, email, and web chat, in English, Spanish, Mandarin, and French. | Automates personalized emails, texts, and calls to prospects. Its AI suggests tasks and tags high-intent Zillow buyers and qualified sellers. | Leads from a comment-to-DM tool you already use become clients in your pipeline, and nothing goes to them without your OK. A routine can add a person to Follow Up Boss. |
| Paperwork and deal dates | ChatGPT Work creates and edits docs, spreadsheets, and PDFs, using apps like Gmail. Contract dates: not stated. | Transaction Management lists document collection, deadline tracking, task checklists, milestone notifications, and e-signature. Cowork reads an uploaded contract and fills in the transaction record. | A deal pipeline shows key info like close date, plus file storage. Contract reading and deadlines: not stated. | Reads a signed contract you send and lists the dates it finds, which you check. Fills the fields of PDF forms you saved and sends them for signature after you say send. Does not create calendar events. |
| Calls | Real-time voice conversation with you. Calling other people: not stated. | AI Outbound Call phones new leads and books a callback. Cowork summarizes calls made on Lofty Dialer. | Make and receive calls in the app, with recordings. Its AI summarizes calls (in beta). Calling is a paid add-on on the Grow plan. | Calls title, a lender, escrow, or the other agent after you approve the purpose and the questions. Does not call your clients. Answers calls on its own line and keeps a record. |
We read these vendor pages on November 4, 2026. Vendors change their pages, so check the claim that matters most to you.
- OpenAI, ChatGPT overview, https://chatgpt.com/overview/
- Lofty, AI Sales Agent, https://lofty.com/ai/sales-agent
- Lofty, Cowork, https://lofty.com/ai/assistant
- Lofty, Transaction Management, https://lofty.com/feature/transaction
- Follow Up Boss, home page, https://www.followupboss.com/
- Follow Up Boss, Pricing, https://www.followupboss.com/pricing
- Follow Up Boss, Deal tracking, https://www.followupboss.com/features/deals
- Follow Up Boss, AI, https://www.followupboss.com/features/ai
- Our own column: our product documentation and https://www.tellreddy.com/
How do you find the job eating your week?
Do this before you book any demo. You need your sent mail, your call log, and your calendar for one recent week.
- List every task from that week that was not a showing, a listing appointment, or a conversation with a client.
- Mark each task with one row of the table: writing, leads and follow-up, paperwork and deal dates, or calls.
- Write a rough time next to each task. A guess is fine, because you are only comparing piles.
- Add up each pile. You are done when you can name the biggest one. If two are close, pick the one that hurts more when it slips, such as a missed contract date over a late social post.
Where is each tool the better pick?
ChatGPT is the better pick when the pile is writing and you do not want a new system. NAR's 2026 report, based on responses from 1,200 agents, says 91% of agents who use AI use ChatGPT, so there is a good chance you already have it. Among those who use AI, the top uses are listing descriptions at 75%, social media posting at 56%, and emails and follow-ups at 52%, while summarizing disclosures and contracts and auto-filling forms are among the least popular, at 10% or less of respondents. The trade-off is that OpenAI's overview page describes no real estate work, so plan on supplying the deal facts and checking each draft against them yourself. Source: The Tech Real Estate Agents Rely on Most in 2026, NAR, September 22, 2026, https://www.nar.realtor/news/real-estate-news/technology/the-tech-real-estate-agents-rely-on-most-in-2026
Lofty is the better pick when new leads go cold before you reach them, or when you want your CRM, website, and deals in one platform. Lofty says its AI Sales Agent replies within seconds, qualifies the lead, books the appointment on your calendar, and hands off when a lead asks for a person. It also says Cowork reads an uploaded contract, and its Transaction Management page lists deadline tracking, task checklists, and e-signature, plus integrations with Dotloop, Brokermint, and SkySlope. The trade-off is that Lofty is a whole platform: it says Cowork works inside the Lofty ecosystem, so this fits best if Lofty is or will be your CRM. Lofty says it has no free trial, so you would test it in a demo. Source: Lofty, https://lofty.com/
Follow Up Boss is the better pick when your business runs on a lead database and you want AI inside it, with no new tool to learn. It calls itself the Real Estate Team OS, and it also offers a demo for solo agents. The trade-offs: it says many of its AI features rely on data from FUB Calling, an added charge on its Grow plan, and the pages we read show deals with key info like close date but do not mention reading contracts or tracking deadlines. It offers a 14-day free trial, so you can run the test below yourself.
Reddy is the better pick when the pile is paperwork and deal dates and you would rather ask for the work in chat, or when you want calls to title or the lender placed after you approve the purpose and the questions. It is the wrong pick if you want AI to work new leads on its own: it sends nothing to those leads without your OK and does not call clients, so Lofty's AI Sales Agent fits that job better. It is also the wrong pick if you want dates placed on your calendar, because it does not create calendar events, or if you want your CRM, website, and deals all in one platform. Either way, you check each date and every form value before relying on them, and you keep using the forms your brokerage or association requires.
What should you test before you pay?
Run one real task through the tool in a trial or a demo. These tests are our suggestion, and they work for any of the four.
- Writing: hand it your notes from a listing you already wrote up. It passes when every fact in the draft traces back to your notes.
- Leads: ask what happens when a lead asks for a person, says stop, or asks something the tool cannot answer, and whether the lead is told it is talking to AI. It passes when the vendor shows you the answer in the product, not on a slide.
- Paperwork: give it one contract from a deal that already closed, handling client details the way your brokerage allows. It passes when every date it lists matches the dates you already know and none are missing.
- Calls: ask who it can call, who approves the call, and where the record ends up. It passes when you can read or hear that record yourself.
Then ask what the tool sends on its own and what waits for your OK. The answer tells you how much checking you are signing up for.
Frequently asked questions
Is ChatGPT enough for a real estate agent?
For writing, it can be. OpenAI says ChatGPT turns rough notes into polished writing, and NAR reports that 91% of agents who use AI use it. As of November 2026, OpenAI's overview page does not describe lead outreach, contract dates, or calling other people, so check before relying on it for those jobs.
Is Lofty an AI assistant?
Lofty offers AI assistants inside a larger platform. It describes itself as an agentic AI operating system that combines lead generation, a CRM, IDX websites, and automation tools. As of November 2026, it says its AI Sales Agent works new leads and its Cowork product, which runs inside Lofty, drafts messages, updates records, and reads uploaded contracts, and we did not test these claims.
Is a CRM with AI the same as an AI assistant?
Not always. A CRM with AI usually works on what the CRM holds: Follow Up Boss, for example, says its AI summarizes calls, suggests tasks, and suggests replies based on a lead's activity. The label tells you little, so ask any vendor which tasks the tool finishes, which it only suggests, and who approves what goes out.
Can I use more than one of these tools?
Yes. These tools cover different jobs, so you might keep ChatGPT for writing and a CRM for leads, then add something for paperwork. Before you add one, check whether it connects to what you already use, because each new tool is one more place to check.
How much do these AI assistants cost?
This comparison leaves prices out. Lofty's pricing page at https://lofty.com/pricing asks you to request pricing instead of listing amounts, so the tools cannot be compared for the same billing period as of November 2026. Check each vendor's current pricing page and compare the same billing period and number of users.
