The Lofty Assistant is Lofty’s own AI feature, a chat-based copilot inside the CRM. A Lofty virtual assistant, in the sense most agents mean when they hire one, is a person who logs into your Lofty account and does the work. They sound alike and do different jobs. Most teams that have outgrown their follow-up need the person, and many will want both.
We run the human side of this for clients, so we have a stake here. We will try to be fair to Lofty’s AI, because it does real things, and equally clear about what it does not do.
What is the Lofty Assistant?
According to Lofty’s January 2024 press release, the Lofty Assistant was unveiled at Inman Connect New York as an AI-powered assistant meant to act as the platform’s central intelligence. The release described qualifying leads, answering online chats, creating content, taking voice commands, and handling inbound calls around the clock. It also said future enhancements were planned, and it gave no pricing or plan details.
The current Lofty Help Center describes something a little different. As of October 2026, its “AI Assistant” article calls it Lofty’s built-in AI chatbot. You use it from a chat prompt inside the product, and there are AI buttons in lead profiles, emails and texts. The article lists these abilities:
- Planning your day and surfacing priority leads and tasks
- Checking to-dos and unanswered messages, creating tasks and scheduling appointments
- Drafting and sending emails and texts, including mass messages, and setting up calls
- Adding notes, creating and filtering leads, and summarizing call recordings (with conditions)
- Searching your Listings tab and inserting listings into messages
- Rewriting text for SMS, email, blogs and social posts
- Answering product questions and taking issue reports
- Optional web search, file uploads, and background “offline” tasks for long requests
Lofty’s newer help pages for its AOS workspace also say the Assistant is available through a left-menu AI Copilots section or Settings, and that Lofty is rolling features out in stages, so what you see depends on your account’s version. The Help Center says it is purchased through the Lofty Marketplace and does not state a price.
One thing worth noting: we could not confirm from the Help Center that the Assistant still does everything the 2024 release described, such as answering inbound calls. If that matters to you, ask Lofty to show it working on your account.
What does a human Lofty virtual assistant do?
A human Lofty VA works inside your account on a schedule and owns outcomes, not just requests. They set things up, check that they fire, and keep doing it next week. In our work that means:
- Building and maintaining smart plans, automations and lead routing
- Writing and testing nurture emails, including how they look in dark mode
- Cleaning and tagging the database so automation has good data
- Connecting lead sources and testing that leads actually arrive
- Contacting leads each day when the system flags them as warm
We cover that list in more depth in what a Lofty virtual assistant can actually do. The point here is the difference in kind. The AI responds when someone prompts it. A VA has a job that continues when nobody is prompting anything.
Lofty AI Assistant vs human VA: side by side
| Question | Lofty AI Assistant | Human Lofty VA |
|---|---|---|
| What is it? | Software feature inside Lofty | A person (or team) who works in your account |
| How is it directed? | You or a team member prompts it in chat | Agreed scope, a routine, weekly review |
| Drafting emails and texts | Yes, per Lofty’s Help Center | Yes, with your voice and brand learned over time |
| Building and fixing smart plans | Not described in the Help Center article | Core work |
| Cleaning tags and duplicates in the database | Can filter and add notes; not described as a clean-up owner | Yes, a standing task |
| Setting up and testing lead-source integrations | No | Yes |
| Phone calls to warm leads | Can set up calls and summarize recordings under conditions | Yes, a person makes the call |
| Notices when a plan quietly stopped working | Only if someone asks | Part of the weekly check |
| Cost | Purchased via Lofty Marketplace; ask Lofty | Depends on scope |
Where the AI is genuinely good
It is good at the first draft and the fast lookup. If you are between showings and need a reply to a long email, a summary of a call, or a list of leads that need attention, a chat prompt is quicker than clicking through screens. It also knows Lofty’s own product, so it can answer how-do-I questions without a support ticket.
It does not need a salary conversation, and it does not go on holiday. For a solo agent with a modest lead flow and good habits, that may be all the help required.
Where it stops
These are the limits we would plan around, and several come down to how the product is described rather than anything hidden.
- It works when asked. Lofty describes a chat you prompt and buttons you click. Nobody is accountable for noticing that a plan stopped enrolling leads.
- It sits on top of your data. If tags are inconsistent and half your database has no source, the assistant draws on the same mess.
- It cannot see outside Lofty. A ReferralExchange notice that never parsed or a Facebook form that lost its permissions is a plumbing problem someone has to find. See our posts on ReferralExchange leads into Lofty and Facebook lead ads to Lofty.
- Messages go out under your name. If it drafts and sends texts, someone should set the rules for consent and review what is being sent. Texting rules are your responsibility, so confirm yours with your broker.
- It is not your judgment. Pricing talk, negotiation and relationship calls stay with the licensed agent whichever tool you use.
Which do you need?
Use a simple rule: if the problem is speed of doing tasks, try the AI. If the problem is that tasks are not getting done at all, hire the person.
- You have few leads and you answer them fast. The AI Assistant alone may be enough.
- You have a database you paid for and never worked. You need a person to clean, segment and build the follow-up.
- Leads arrive from several sources. You need a person to wire and monitor each source.
- You have a team. You need someone to own routing and plan hygiene, so the AI is not being fed inconsistent rules by five people.
- You want a daily owner for warm leads. That is a person. A smart plan can flag, but it does not pick up the phone, as we explain in smart plans vs manual follow-up.
Also compare a VA with a licensed ISA if you need live conversations qualifying leads. We break that down in ISA vs virtual assistant.
How the two combine
They are not rivals. The VA sets up the system: sources, tags, plans, templates and the daily contact routine. The AI Assistant, if you buy it, speeds up the drafting and lookup that you or the VA do inside that system. The VA reviews what the AI drafted when it matters, and keeps an eye on whether the automation underneath is still running.
The risk to avoid is buying the AI to fix a process that has no owner. It will faithfully speed up a broken follow-up.
What this looked like for a client
Tammy Theis is an agent with Realty ONE Group Visionaries in Augusta, Georgia, in a market with heavy PCS military relocation. Her case is about human work inside Lofty, not about the AI product. We built her Lofty website from the ground up and manage the account, including smart plans, automations and lead routing.
We also built a 30-email nurture sequence in her teal and tan branding, engineered around Lofty smart plans so follow-up triggers off behavior (an open, a click or a reply) instead of a fixed calendar. Every email got dark-mode rendering fixes. The email campaigns have generated real replies, and each day we contact leads the moment the smart plans flag them as warm. We cannot share more numbers than that. The full write-up is on her case study page.
If you searched for a Lofty virtual assistant and meant a person, that is what our Lofty virtual assistant service is. Tell us what you want off your plate and we will scope it with you in a free consult.