Almost every conversation in real estate right now circles back to one question: how do we get found?
Found on Google. Found in an AI answer. Found when someone asks for an agent who knows a certain neighborhood or a certain kind of property.
Then the 2026 print edition of Chicago Agent magazine’s Who’s Who in Chicagoland Real Estate landed on my desk.
It’s a real catalog. My copy runs about 240 pages and is nearly three-quarters of an inch thick, full of strong photography and broker profiles. You can tell people put serious time, care and money into it.
And it’s print.
That’s what stuck with me. While most of us are working to be easier for a machine to find, someone made an object that asks a person to slow down. It sits on a desk. You flip through it. You stop on a face. You read a story you weren’t looking for.
The profiles live online too. But the catalog does something search can’t. Search starts with a question you already have. A catalog can introduce you to someone you didn’t know to ask about.
I spend a lot of my time on AI visibility, so this isn’t an argument against it. I want my work to be useful and easy to find. This catalog was a reminder that being found is only the first step. The real test is whether people want to spend time with what they find.
Maybe that’s why it made such an impression. In 2026, when nearly everything gets scrolled past in a second, this catalog asks for a little room on your desk and a little more of your attention.