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Apartments.com Launches AI Search Powered by TravelTime
rebecca payton
Contents
Introducing Apartments.com AI
Apartments.com, the leading US rental marketplace, has launched Apartments.com AI – a conversational search experience that reimagines how renters find their next home.
It supports renters to “find a home that fits their lifestyle with far greater speed, confidence and precision,” replacing traditional filters and keyword queries with natural, real-time conversations.
With Apartments.com AI, property seekers “simply describe what matters most to them… and receive highly personalised recommendations tailored to their lifestyle and priorities.”
At the core of the AI search and recommendation engine for the 1 million+ apartments, houses, condos, and townhouses, across the property portal is TravelTime.
TravelTime API powers the commute and transit insights behind every search. We are the location intelligence data layer turning “near my office”, “close to green space”, “30 mins from the beach” into accurate, real-world results.
“By combining artificial intelligence with the most comprehensive multifamily data in the industry, we can understand what renters are truly looking for, guide them through their options and help them find a home that fits their lifestyle with far greater speed, confidence and precision.”
Why Conversational Search Changes Apartment Hunting
Finding the right property is about how a place fits into daily life – the commute, the transit links, the neighbourhood, the trade-offs that people make every day.
Apartments.com research shows that 85% begin their search on rental sites and networks, and 87% don't know a community or neighbourhood name when they start. They search broadly, by the things that matter to them – proximity to key amenities, commute to work, number of bedrooms, price, etc. – which makes understanding intent, and location, essential.
“Apartments.com AI helps renters search, understand, compare, and contact properties through natural seamless conversation.”
Conversational search reflects that reality. It lets people express what matters to them:
- “Quiet apartment near great restaurants and <30 min drive to my office”
- “Pet-friendly community under $2,000 a month with easy subway access”
- “Luxury apartment with a gym and outdoor space, walkable to downtown”
- “Family home within 45-minutes of the city, near good schools”
Every one of those queries hinges on accurate location data: real-world proximity and access insights, journey time data, up-to-date transport and infrastructure info, alongside walkability and neighbourhood insights, and POI/amenity data.
How TravelTime Supports Apartments.com
AI search is only as strong as the data behind it. When people are given the opportunity to have “natural, real-time conversations,” they can ask anything. So, platforms need the underlying data to meet the user intent and deliver personalised recommendations.
TravelTime provides property platforms with:
- Travel times across multiple transport modes
- Real-world journey data at scale to support millions of concurrent queries
- Isochrones, routes, H3, and matrices to suit a range of location-based features
- Unlimited API usage for a single fixed price
- Accurate calculations across the US and worldwide
This allows accurate, personalised AI-driven search experiences like Apartments.com AI to scale across millions of conversations without performance issues or the taxi-meter effect of transactional pricing.
“Matching that free-text search intent to the real-world is what makes results genuinely relevant for the end-user. We're proud to power the next generation of marketplace search with the accurate, scalable location data layer from TravelTime.”
Charlie Davies
CEO & Co-Founder, TravelTime
A Shifting Approach to Marketplace Search
Apartments.com is the latest property portal to join the organisations making AI search a priority.
It follows the launch of Homes.com AI Smart Search and UK disruptor, Jitty.com in building industry-leading AI search experiences. With many more emerging across both property and digital marketplaces.
And the shift is already paying off. In the first two months of its AI-powered search, Apartments.com saw 35 million renter sessions – and renters using it converted 56% more often across all lead types, with tour requests up 144%, according to Apartments.com.
For the organisations that make the shift, the results can be truly transformative.
Get Started with TravelTime
Congratulations to Apartments.com on the launch of Apartments.com AI. It's a meaningful step forward for rental discovery across the US.
If you're interested in building AI-powered, conversational search into your platform and want to ground it in real-world location data, we'd love to talk.
Chat to us or get started with a free API key.
rebecca payton