Katelyn is a writer with CNET covering social media, AI and online services. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in media and journalism. You can often find her with a novel and an iced coffee during her time off.
One of the most stressful parts of moving is selling all the stuff you don’t want anymore and finding replacements for your new place. That’s part of why Nextdoor, the social media app that connects real-life neighbors and communities, is expanding its generative AI assistant to its online marketplace. The upgraded feature is available in the US starting today.
One of Nextdoor’s biggest features is its location-based “For Sale & Free” section, which operates similar to Facebook Marketplace. The upgraded AI assistant will now help you create the ideal sales listing to cut down time spent perfecting each detail on the post. Once you select the photos you want to include, the AI assistant will fill out the listing to write a title and description, suggest a price and arrange the photos. You can edit the post as needed.
Summer is the busiest time of year for moving, according to Nextdoor data, with August in particular seeing the biggest increase in people leaving and joining new communities. Those moving costs can also stack with other seasonal expenses, like school supplies. CNET found that adults will spend an average of $662 on back-to-school supplies this year. Nextdoor reports that two thirds of parents on Nextdoor plan on using its online marketplace to help mitigate the increasing price tags for students and families. The company hopes that expanding the AI tool will help parents create and browse listings more easily.
Nextdoor’s generative AI assistant is built with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, using the popular chatbot’s API. Nextdoor’s privacy policy states that your information can be shared with third-party service providers, including those for generative artificial intelligence. Previously, the company has used machine learning to power its kindness reminders, which are alerts that urge people to rethink and reword their messages before sending them.
