Every day, Inman gets a slew of announcements about big teams and industry leaders making moves from one company to another. It’s more than we can cover!

So, here are some of the biggest announcements from recent days:

Century 21

Rochester indie Sharon Quataert Realty has joined Century 21, now operating as Century 21 APEX. Sharon Quataert and her two children, Brittany Quataert and Brad Quataert, have spent the past 11 years serving Rochester and the surrounding Monroe County, using more than 40 years of combined real estate, insurance, and accounting experience to become one of the top-ranked firms in the area.

“I want to create a legacy bigger than myself; I’ve been fortunate enough to have an impact on the real estate industry in Rochester in a micro sense, but I believe that the Century 21 brand is the key that can allow me to do so on a more macro scale,” Sharon said.

Fathom Realty

EXIT Homestead Realty Professionals has joined Fathom, expanding the brokerage’s South Jersey footprint. EXIT Homestead broker-owner Stephanie Verderose recently joined Fathom Realty as the VP of growth, and now her 50 agents will also be under the Fathom banner as Homestead Realty Professionals.

“After 21 years of running brokerages and guiding agents through every market type, this move was made with careful consideration and a clear vision for the future,” she said. “It was made for the benefit of everyone we serve — our agents and, especially, our clients.”

Hopper Group

Compass team The Hopper Group has added a new member, Kyle Weber. Weber has been in the industry since 2021, steadily building a reputation as one of Greater Seattle’s top luxury condo agents, with $120 million in sales volume in 2025. “Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s condo landscape, he offers buyers an insider’s perspective that goes far beyond the surface, while consistently securing record-breaking results for his sellers,” the firm said of Weber.

Sotheby’s International Realty

SIR’s Canadian division has a new president, Mustafa Abbasi. Abbasi has more than 25 years of experience in real estate and financial services, including at American Express and REX Real Estate. The president also founded real estate marketplace, Zolo, which Questrate Financial Group acquired in 2022.

“Mustafa’s distinctive blend of entrepreneurial and corporate real estate leadership, deep digital expertise, and Canadian market insight uniquely positions Sotheby’s International Realty Canada to meet the evolving expectations of clients and advisors,” Peerage Realty Partners CEO Tara Brown said.

Stellar MLS

Stellar MLS has promoted Shayne Fairley to CEO. Fairley has been with Stellar for 20 years, starting with roles in training, compliance, data services, and operations before becoming the MLS’s COO in 2017.

“I am excited about the next stage of Stellar MLS’s successful journey, and I look forward to continuing to focus on the priorities we have held for many years: putting our customers first, advancing innovation, and continuing to lead the MLS forward as we help shape the future of real estate in the markets we serve,”  he said of his promotion.

The Real Brokerage

Real has expanded its presence in South Florida with another multimillion-dollar team. The Sandra Rathe Team closed $135 million in sales last year, as the 20-agent group expanded its reach into Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County’s luxury markets. The team ranks 15th by sales volume in Florida, according to RealTrends Verified. “The Sandra Rathe Team exemplifies what it means to build a client-first business that scales with intention,” Real CEO Tamir Poleg said.

On the heels of Rathe, Real also announced that it had tapped San Diego Realtor Jason Cassity to serve as its first-ever chief growth officer. Cassity will be responsible for architecting, leading and accelerating the company’s growth strategy for its brokerage business, the firm said in a press release on Monday.

“Three and a half years ago, I bet my career on Real because I saw a vision that was bigger than a traditional brokerage,” he said. “Today, I am stepping away from my personal production to ensure that every agent who joins us has the tools, the technology and the community they need to achieve their own greatness.”

Email Marian McPherson

I start every year by attending Inman Connect in New York. I’ve been attending since 2011. This year, the conference celebrated its 30th anniversary. I’ve personally witnessed roughly half of that history.

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What has drawn me to New York for 15 years is the chance to broaden my perspective. The exchange with international colleagues, the direct contact with the tech industry, the impulses from speakers in entirely different fields — all of this helps me recognize trends earlier and see things differently.

Back in 2017, I called the experience “double exhilarating” on these pages — and that hasn’t changed. Inman Connect isn’t an obligation for me; it’s a deliberate way to start the year. And this year, the message was clearer than ever.

AI is no longer a tool. It’s a ques­tion of mind­set  

Brad Inman presented a thesis in his keynote that has stayed with me. He positions artificial intelligence as the fifth industrial revolution — after steam power, electricity, computers and the internet.

Inman’s core message is surprisingly sober: AI amplifies what’s already there. Those who work responsibly and with substance will get better. Those who don’t will become irrelevant faster.

He drew a parallel to the first Inman Connect in 1996, when just 1 percent of all listings were online. Back then, there was the same mix of skepticism and excitement that we’re seeing with AI today. Inman called it “joyful intelligence” — the ability to meet technological change with curiosity rather than fear.

It’s not about whether we use AI. Most of us already do. It’s about the mindset with which we use it. AI doesn’t save broken business models. But it can elevate solid work, genuine market expertise and strong client relationships to a new level. That’s the mindset question our industry needs to ask itself.

From text ma­chine to digi­tal team mem­ber  

The dominant technology theme of the conference was the next concrete step: agentic AI. Until now, most of us have used AI as a single-purpose tool — give ChatGPT a task, get a result, refine it. This first wave of generative AI remains reactive.

The second wave works fundamentally differently: autonomous, goal-oriented systems that independently execute multi-step tasks, adapt to context and deliver results with minimal human oversight. The pace is staggering:

• OpenClaw, a personal AI agent that went from a solo developer’s side project to 195,000 GitHub stars in weeks, was just acquired by OpenAI.
• Anthropic’s Claude Code lets developers delegate entire coding workflows from the command line.

These aren’t prototypes, they’re products.

What that means in practice: Instead of generating individual texts, an AI could soon orchestrate an entire acquisition process from data matching to initial outreach to structured follow-up. Several proptechs showcased first platforms at the expo that promise exactly this. The industry in the U.S. is visibly moving from individual AI tools toward AI-powered operating systems for real estate firms.

At KAMPMEYER Immobilien, we’re working on similar approaches: an AI-powered acquisition coach for our advisors, an intelligent database that learns from 30 years of client and transaction history, and AI-driven processes for listing creation and property search.

The challenge isn’t the technology itself but how to integrate it without losing what defines our work at its core: personal, substantive consulting.

When AI search­es in­stead of Google  

Jeff Lobb of SparkTank Media presented a startling finding: 37 percent of U.S. consumers already use AI-powered search instead of traditional search engines when looking for services. Instead of typing “Best real estate agent in my area” into Google, clients ask ChatGPT — and get a curated recommendation. If you don’t appear in that answer, you lose potential clients without even knowing it.

AI scans everything digitally available about a company: websites, blog articles, social media profiles, reviews. A single negative phrase can appear more prominently in the AI-generated summary than a hundred positive entries.

Lobb’s warning was unmistakable: Those who don’t adapt risk the same fate as BlackBerry. This shift hasn’t hit every market with the same intensity yet. But the question isn’t whether, but when.

The more AI, the more im­por­tant the hu­man  

Amid the technology enthusiasm, the conference had a clear counterpoint. The marketing leaders of eXp Realty, Keller Williams, and Compass International Holdings agreed: AI is a good starting point, but no substitute for the human advisor. Ryan Serhant put it in a memorable formula: AI should multiply agents, not replace them.

The insight that ran through the entire conference was this: The more powerful the technology becomes, the more valuable what it cannot do becomes. Building trust, understanding complex life situations, striking the right tone in difficult negotiations — these remain core human competencies.

The best real estate professionals of the future won’t just be executors. They’ll be orchestrators who deploy AI strategically to focus on what truly matters: the relationship with the client.

AI doesn’t make the advisor obsolete. It makes the mediocre advisor obsolete. Those with substance will become stronger through AI.

And now?

When I first attended Inman Connect in 2011, David Carr of The New York Times gave a keynote called “When the Future Moves in Next Door.” His core message: The tools change, but the craft and its values remain. Nobody talked about artificial intelligence back then. Fifteen years later, Carr’s message is more relevant than ever.

This transformation is an opportunity for those willing to combine technology with substance. As I wrote in my AI manifesto last fall: doing nothing is not an option, but blindly chasing every technological trend isn’t either. Inman Connect 2026 confirmed that conviction.

Brad Inman’s message for the fifth revolution is simple: Technology rewards those who use it with responsibility and substance. That’s true in New York. That’s true everywhere. And it’s true right now.