Do real estate chatbots have to follow fair housing laws?

Yes. A chatbot speaking on your behalf is held to the same standard as an agent, and the brokerage is responsible for what it says. That means no steering visitors toward or away from areas based on protected characteristics, no answering questions about the makeup of a neighborhood, and no treating two visitors differently based on anything protected under fair housing rules.

In practice, this comes down to how the bot is configured. Ask your vendor how the system handles steering questions, whether responses can be reviewed and corrected, and whether transcripts are retained. Keeping conversation logs matters: if a complaint is ever filed, a full record of exactly what was said is far better than a recollection.