"Trust me to market your biggest asset... but I wouldn't trust a designer to market mine." says real estate agent

An Orange County real estate agent has proudly unveiled a newly minted AI-generated business card this week, prompting observers of the Threads post to question whether it should be folded into thirds and distributed as a local tourism brochure due to the overwhelming amount of information stacked on what is supposed to be a card shaped for a wallet.

Reportedly created using ChatGPT after "a few prompt refinements", the business card contains fourteen icons, two QR codes, three phone numbers, two email addresses, every social media platform known to mankind and enough text to comfortably satisfy the nutritional information panel on a cereal box.

One commenter summed up the design with the now widely celebrated critique:

"Not enough text."

Witnesses say the same agent arrived to work driving a brand-new Mercedes-Benz and sporting a luxury Swiss watch worth considerably more than the annual marketing budget of most small businesses.

According to colleagues, however, hiring a professional designer for a business card was considered "an unnecessary expense." The contradiction hasn't gone unnoticed.

Industry analysts point out that real estate agents routinely encourage vendors to invest thousands of dollars in professional photography, styling, videography and listing campaigns to maximise the sale price of their property, and of course taking their commission on the sale. While some appear reluctant to invest the same level of thinking into the very brand responsible for winning those vendor listings in the first place.

"It's fascinating," one branding consultant observed. "They'll happily explain why presentation adds value to a property, then hand you a business card that looks like someone asked AI to fit their LinkedIn profile, a PowerPoint brochure, and a quarterly property market report onto 3.5 by 2 inches.”

As for the use of AI, behavioural researchers believe the AI phenomenon characterised by a rose coloured glass sense of pride in an AI-produced image may be explained by what's known as the IKEA Effect, where people place disproportionately high value on something simply because they helped create it.

In the age of generative AI, experts suspect the same psychology is quietly taking hold. "The moment someone writes the prompt," one psychologist explained, "the design starts feeling like theirs. Criticise it, and they hear you criticising them."

Perhaps that's the biggest illusion AI has created. Not that everyone has become a designer. But that everyone suddenly feels like one even if it still looks like “AI-slop”.

At the time of publication, the agent had reportedly updated the card for a second time after asking ChatGPT to "make it pop", resulting in another QR code, a gold gradient, and the word TRUST appearing in 48-point bold beneath the logo mark of a house silhouette.

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