What if your booking system could take orders... from you?

ISSUE 0004
Last week in real estate media... HDPhotoHub began rolling out Hubby, an AI admin built into the beta of its New Interface, Laowa released its 24mm f/2 Zero-D Tilt-Shift, and an NAR MLS committee approved an optional policy that would let an MLS require up to a 50 percent copyright interest in certain listing content. PMRE is one week out. Here's the rundown.

HDPhotoHub has begun rolling out Hubby, an AI admin built into the beta of its New Interface. In a Nov. 5 beta update email and a companion demo video, the company describes Hubby as a chat panel where users can ask, in everyday language, about their orders, clients, schedules, products and pricing, and have it make changes such as bulk price updates and schedule edits. HDPhotoHub says Hubby is included at no additional cost and only works in the New Interface.

HDPhotoHub says Hubby follows existing account permissions and records changes in an audit log. In the product demo, Hubby shows what will change and waits for the user to approve before saving.

Beyond the chat, HDPhotoHub is pitching automation. With Hubby Actions, users save an instruction once and run it on demand, on a schedule, or automatically when something happens in the account, such as a new order. HDPhotoHub's help article says these Actions run on their own, without asking for approval each time, and recommends testing one by hand before setting it to run automatically.

The same release adds an official connector (known as an MCP server) so outside AI assistants, including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, can connect to an HDPhotoHub account. HDPhotoHub says those assistants can read business data and take actions such as creating clients, rescheduling shoots, updating pricing and managing orders.

Among the top real estate media booking and delivery systems, HDPhotoHub is the only one we found with both a built-in AI admin and an official way to connect outside AI assistants. Spiro says it runs an MCP server that lets Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants answer questions about your Spiro data, and Tonomo offers a similar connection in early beta. We didn't find a built-in AI admin at either one, or at Aryeo, Rela or Show&Tour.

Laowa has released its 24mm f/2 Zero-D Tilt-Shift at $1,249. It's a manual-focus wide-angle tilt-shift with an aperture of f/2 to f/22, 10 degrees of tilt, 12mm of shift and a 77mm filter thread. It comes in Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF, L-mount, Fujifilm GFX and Hasselblad XCD mounts. Two reviews posted Nov. 5 show it in use: The Shifter Community compares it with Canon's 24mm tilt-shift, and Nathan Cool Photo tests it for architectural work.

Learn more: Laowa | 24mm f/2 Zero-D Tilt-Shift

Adobe's Firefly AI Assistant, in public beta since April 27, 2026, can run Creative Skills such as batch editing a photo set with Photoshop and Lightroom tools. Adobe's FAQ says it is available to all paid Creative Cloud subscribers and some free accounts. Adobe also completed its acquisition of Topaz Labs in September 2026 and says Topaz enhancement technology is available in Firefly and Photoshop. Could Adobe's AI eventually handle real estate editing?

Learn more: Adobe | Firefly AI Assistant now available in public beta | Adobe | Adobe completes acquisition of Topaz Labs

A photographer asked who is using AI to run the back end of a real estate media company and how to get started. Commenters described tools they say they use for booking texts, order admin, memory card import and folder setup, starting edits, and handing off to a delivery platform. Others separated operations automation from creative editing, and some said the initial setup time is the hard part.

Read the thread: Real Estate Videography (Facebook group)

A photographer asked how others keep bookings going as a slower winter approaches. Some commenters pointed to year-round marketing, networking and their own content. Others said they save from busier months and rest more, review prices and packages, update websites and social strategy, take seasonal side work, or expand into another market.

Read the thread: Real Estate Videography (Facebook group)

A photographer who said they shoot about 500 listings a year asked whether AI coding tools could replace the order and delivery platform they pay about $5 per listing for, since they don't use all of its features. Some commenters said they have built custom systems. Others warned about hosting, integrations, maintenance, security and backups, and said it is simpler to cover the fee in shoot pricing. The original poster said they would raise rates instead.

Read the thread: Real Estate Photography Beginners to Advanced (Facebook group)

WATCH

On OUTWORK, Oliver Ward and Alex Coombs talk with Craig Cole of Wavefront Media Co. about hiring a coach after nearly 10 years in business, including last year's burnout when he was looking at an exit strategy, fixing systems, and doing too much of the shooting himself.

WATCH

Inside Real Estate Photography walks through export settings (including a ProRes master), upscaling vertical reels to 4K in Topaz Video, an Instagram upload-quality setting, and a workaround to get 4K onto Instagram.

WATCH | LISTEN

On Upmarket, Reed Fish talks with realtor and PMRE speaker Sam Benner about Compass private listings: marketing listings privately within Compass's network of brokerages, days on market, clear cooperation versus coming soon, and what a private-listing media package could look like for photographers.

At NAR NXT on Nov. 8, 2026, NAR's Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee approved a revision to Policy Statement 7.85 and a new optional policy, Copyright Protection of MLS Data, that would let an MLS, at its discretion, require up to a 50 percent copyright ownership interest in "certain listing content," according to NAR REALTOR News and a same-day NAR press release. Any such interest would be subject to quarterly copyright registration. Participants must be allowed to opt out of assigning that interest, and brokers would keep the right to independently use and license their own listing content. NAR's summaries do not define which works count as "certain listing content."

Under NAR's current Handbook on Multiple Listing Policy (2026 edition), Policy Statement 7.86 already defines "listing content" to include photographs, images, graphics, audio and video recordings, virtual tours, drawings, descriptions, remarks, narratives, pricing information and other details related to listed property. As currently written in the Handbook, Statement 7.85 generally bars MLSs from requiring participants to transfer ownership of listing content as a condition of participation, aside from licenses needed for MLS purposes. The Nov. 8 package also includes an optional data-feed eligibility policy, a statement limiting MLS data use to brokerage, appraisal or valuation purposes, and updated qualifications for NAR's MLS Committee. NAR's press release says the recommendations were "considered and adopted at NAR NXT 2026." Neither NAR summary gives an effective date or the full Handbook text.

Read: NAR | NAR Committee Approves 4 New MLS Policy Changes | NAR | Press release on four MLS policy recommendations

The Photo + Media for Real Estate (PMRE) Conference runs Nov. 17-19 at Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, with optional workshops on Nov. 16. Standard in-person registration is $899. PMRE doesn't list a virtual or livestream ticket, but its FAQ says the 2026 conference will be available for on-demand replay in the PMRE+ App after the event.

Details: pmreconference.com | PMRE FAQ

Until next week,
Real Estate Media Weekly