AI Tools Today: Gemini adds tools for small business owners, ChatGPT can lock private chats, and Gemini gets personal in Android Auto

Google and OpenAI both shipped updates on October 20, with Google adding small business tools to the Gemini app and bringing Gemini’s personal answers to Android Auto, and OpenAI letting you lock private conversations in ChatGPT. We close with NAR’s September pending home sales report and this morning’s mortgage rates.

Gemini adds a business hub, saved brand styles and financial insights

Google announced on October 20 that the Gemini app is getting a new business landing page, which is one place inside Gemini to work on your brand, look at your finances and review what your customers are telling you. It connects to Google Business Profile, Google Ads and Google Workspace, and to outside apps including Adobe, Canva, Dropbox, Shopify, Wix, Zoho and Xero. You can upload your website, brand kit, fonts or color palette once, and Gemini keeps that style and uses Nano Banana 2.1, its latest image model, to make marketing visuals that match it, so you skip uploading your guidelines again with each request. Gemini can also turn spreadsheets, receipts and purchase records into financial charts and interactive models. Google says the landing page, the new marketing and finance skills and the new connected apps start rolling out globally to all Gemini app users in the coming days. (Google)

Price: price not published for the new business tools, and the Gemini app has a free plan at $0 per month with a Google Account, with Google AI Plus at $4.99 per month, Google AI Pro at $19.99 per month and Google AI Ultra starting at $99.99 per month (Google AI plans)

For your office: when the business page shows up in your Gemini app, upload your brokerage’s logo, fonts and colors once, then ask Gemini for a just listed graphic and an open house flyer and check every address, date and detail on them before anything goes out.

ChatGPT lets you lock private conversations

OpenAI introduced locked chats on October 20, which keep a conversation in your account while hiding it from your regular chat history, your pinned chats and search. You open a locked chat with a 4 digit PIN on your account or with a supported sign in method on your device, and your data retention and model training settings stay as they are. To lock one, open the chat’s menu (the three dots) and choose Lock chat. It is rolling out gradually to Free, Go, Plus and Pro users on the web, in the iPhone and Android apps and in the new ChatGPT desktop app for Mac and Windows. (OpenAI)

Price: locked chats comes with the Free plan at no charge, and the paid plans that include it are ChatGPT Plus at $20 per month and ChatGPT Pro at $100, $200 or $500 per month, along with ChatGPT Go (ChatGPT Plus, ChatGPT Pro tiers)

For your office: if you use a personal ChatGPT account to draft offer strategy or work through a client’s financials, lock those chats so they stay out of view when you share your screen in a meeting or hand your phone to someone at a showing.

Gemini in Android Auto can answer questions about your own email and calendar

Google announced on October 20 that Gemini is available in cars around the world on Android Auto and in cars with Google built in, and that Personal Intelligence, which lets Gemini use your own apps to answer, starts rolling out on Android Auto the same day, with cars with Google built in following in the coming months. Once you turn it on, Gemini can draw on Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Photos, Google Maps, YouTube and Search, so it can answer a question with several parts while you drive and find a place from something you saved in Maps or a photo. Your apps stay disconnected until you switch it on, and you can turn it off at any time in Gemini settings. Google lists it for eligible personal Google accounts for people 18 and older, and Workspace business, enterprise and education accounts are outside this rollout, as are the European Economic Area, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Nigeria. (Google)

Price: price not published (Google)

For your office: if your showings and client emails run through a personal Gmail and Google Calendar, turn on Personal Intelligence in the Gemini app and ask it on the drive where your next appointment is and what the client last emailed you, so you arrive at the property with the latest details in hand.

In the industry

The National Association of Realtors reported on October 20 that pending home sales, which count contracts signed on existing homes, fell 7.3% in September from August and 11.3% from a year earlier, with every region down and the West down the most at 9.2% for the month. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun tied the drop to fast rising mortgage rates and said rates could be topping out, which makes this a good week to check in with buyers who paused their search and to review pricing with sellers whose homes have sat. (NAR via GlobeNewswire)

Mortgage Research Center data published by Fortune on the morning of October 21 put the average 30-year fixed rate at 7.333%, up from 7.297% the day before and down from 7.388% a week ago, and the 15-year fixed rate at 6.513%. Those are the numbers to use when you rerun payment estimates for buyers this week. (Fortune)

We publish this every day there is something real to report. If a tool your office depends on shipped something we missed, tell us at realestateaistudio.com/contact.