Ryan Serhant, the star realtor captured in Netflix’s “Owning Manhattan,” claims his company produces about 2,200 social posts a month. It’s a hefty amount for a man who oversees a sprawling real estate empire across 19 U.S. regions, an in-house production studio that employs roughly 100 people and millions of followers across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Producing so much content, however, is a tough ask for someone trying to do their day job: managing a brokerage.
Serhant has partnered with HeyGen, a company that lets users create personalized AI avatars, to build a new social media presence featuring an AI persona modeled after his likeness. The avatar will appear across Instagram, TikTok and X under the handle @HeySerhant, an extension of his main presence that will share lessons learned from decades in real estate. As I run the businesses and I still sell and we still do the TV shows, this gives us a way to make more of that accessible to the people that want to watch it.” Serhant’s decision follows a wave of high-profile figures opting to license their images to AI companies, allowing for new forms of content featuring their likeness while potentially creating a new revenue stream for those who opt in.
The relationship with HeyGen came about “organically,” Serhant says, after witnessing the types of content the company was creating. His content arm — of the 100 people, roughly 30 are based with Serhant in New York — has tried to figure out ways to balance building content around the broker’s image as he’s traveling the country for showings. Those videos will exclusively feature the avatar, though Serhant expects clips to pop up where his actual persona will engage with it.
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