Bright MLS is set to implement a series of rule updates later this summer designed to give agents more options and sellers greater control over property data.

Changes also establish new protections around the use of listing information in artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

Other moves include a streamlined listing submission process, unified consumer display standards, new privacy controls for sellers and expanded pre-marketing options.

A central change reaffirms the requirement that all listings must be submitted to the MLS within two calendar days of signing a listing agreement. Bright is introducing a new option for situations where a property is not yet ready for public marketing.

Agents will be able to file the listing with the MLS in a new “Registered” status while they and their sellers prepare for its marketing launch.

This allows agents to remain compliant with the two-day submission rule without triggering public exposure before the seller is ready.

“The two days has been policy for a long time,” said Rajeev Sajja, chief artificial intelligence and product officer at Bright MLS. “However, with the additional options we’re giving them, they can add it in the MLS within two days — but still restrict exposure and take the journey with the visuals that were probably shared with you anyway.”

Sajja noted that agents have multiple layers of control available in the rule updates, including office exclusive status, coming soon status and active status with internet display options.

“There are stages that they can fully control exposure while still being compliant and not worrying about more exposure than before they’re ready for it,” he said.

New reporting option, privacy controls

Bright is consolidating its IDX and VOW rules into a single “Policy on Display for Consumer Search” with uniform display standards.

While the underlying display rules remain largely unchanged, the update introduces a mechanism for agents to report websites that fail to remove information added to their listings.

Sajja said agents may submit compliance tickets through Bright’s system — with the MLS pursuing enforcement against publishers that violate display rules.

“We have a strong compliance follow-through framework,” he said. “We get a few hundred compliance issues every month, so agents can report it, and we’ll obviously go after the publisher for that reason.”

The updates also introduce two advanced settings giving sellers more control over how their property data appears online. Photo suppression allows sellers to request that all but one exterior photo be suppressed from public-facing websites — while all photos remain fully visible to professionals within the Bright MLS system.

This expands upon a listing photo control option for off-market listings introduced in December.

Price suppression gives sellers the option to withhold the listing price from public sites.

“Our goal at an MLS is to truly empower any broker’s marketing strategy or an agent’s marketing strategy, so that they don’t say, ‘I can’t do this in an MLS because my seller is asking for it,'” Sajja said. “If they feel like we want to suppress the price for those, we have a path for that. If they want full exposure, we have a path for that.

“I think our goal is give them more options and have them choose the options that best fit their strategy.”

Sajja emphasized that Bright’s role is not to direct marketing strategy.  

“We are a neutral, transparent, cooperative marketplace,” he said. “We want to empower them with all the options they need.”

AI protections, data governance

Bright is taking what Sajja described as a proactive stance on how broker data is used — and not used — in AI applications.

The MLS is prohibiting anyone from downloading MLS data and uploading it to train AI models.

“The pitfalls [of uploading data directly to AI tools] is having AI models train on our data. We want to do it the right way and give them access,” Sajja said, referring to plans to provide subscribers with secure access to MLS data through tools like model context protocol servers.

Bright is also developing an application that will allow subscribers to utilize AI to ask questions and receive answers grounded in Bright’s market data.

Sajja added that he recently tested three large language models by asking for the list-to-sale price ratio in his neighborhood, and each gave a slightly different answer.

“If it was all connected to Bright’s trusted data, the answer would be exactly the same, and that’s where we’re headed,” he said. “We want to empower our brokers and agents to win at the client conversations, the kitchen table.”

Sajja also pointed to Bright’s recent efforts to enforce data use policies — including calling out large language models that were scraping listing photos without permission.

“We think we’re taking a proactive stance on how brokers’ data is used and not used in AI,” he said.

Broader strategy, launch date

Sajja said the rule changes preserve flexibility while protecting cooperation.

“We want to give the freedom to the broker to market the way they want as they work with their sellers to supports their strategy, and we don’t really pivot to one broker strategy over the other,” he said. “Our role, we think, is to empower every broker in our marketplace to compete on their strategy and give them the options to do that in the MLS.”

Bright has not finalized a specific date for the rule updates — saying that they will take effect later this summer.

Sajja said the timing is intended to give data feed recipients time to adapt to the changes, particularly photo suppression, which requires technical adjustments. “

“Photo suppression is a big thing,” he said. “I’m a technologist and I know coding. It takes a while to get that going, and we’ve heard that initially. So, we want to leave the window a little open and give them, respectfully, some time to get the changes done.”

Bright said it will provide additional details in the coming weeks to help subscribers navigate the new tools and settings.