The Founder Stepped Back, AI Moved In, and My Head Still Hurts: What Just Happened at eXpcon

Somebody pass me two Panadol and an orange juice. My head hurts.

You know the feeling. Three days in Salt Lake City, a notebook full of ideas, a camera roll of slides, and a head buzzing with possibility. Then Monday hits. The inbox has doubled, a contract is wobbling, and every big idea from the main stage quietly slides into the "someday" pile.

That's the conference hangover. And this year it could be a bad one, because eXpcon Salt Lake City (7–9 October) threw a lot at us. Our founder changed seats. eXp rolled out a new way to use AI. We heard about a platform built by our own international team, a new country, and a London conference for next year. So grab a coffee (or that orange juice) and let me walk you through it.

Glenn's not going anywhere. He's just changed seats

Thursday morning was the moment the room went quiet. Glenn Sanford stood up on stage and announced he's stepping down as CEO of AGNT, Inc., the parent company a lot of us still call eXp World Holdings. Leo Pareja, who's been running eXp Realty since 2024, takes over the top job.

Glenn isn't leaving, though. He stays on as Chairman of the Board and will keep advising the company. I like to think of it as him moving from the driver's seat to the passenger seat, with one hand still on the map. He even had a laugh about it: "Tomorrow will be the first day that I am technically unemployed." But he said something else I think matters more. "I would not be doing this if we didn't have the leadership team that we do."

Glenn started as an agent in 2002 and launched eXp in 2009 with 24 agents in Bellingham, Washington. Seventeen years later he's handing the keys to Leo, who says he'll lead the company through its "digital transformation". Which brings me to the tech.

Your AI, plugged into your eXp business

Plenty of companies are racing to build their own AI assistant. eXp went the other way. Instead of asking you to learn yet another tool, it's connecting the AI you already use to your eXp data. They're calling it MCP First, AI of Choice.

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. It's an open standard that lets AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT talk to your other systems, once you give them permission. No new app, no new login. You ask your AI a question and it pulls the answer from your actual business.

Right now it connects to the eXp Hub, My eXp, eXp University, eXp Divisions, Canva and a handful of CRMs (Lofty, BoldTrail and Cloze), with more on the way. 

So whats the big deal, you can ask yours how your production this quarter stacks up against last quarter. Or which eXp University courses you started and never finished (we've all got a few). Or get it to turn your listing notes into a Canva post. Leo put it simply: "MCP first, AI of Choice means agents keep using the AI they already trust."

Nexus, made by eXp International

This is the part I'm proudest of. Leo described MCP as "the front door, and AGNT OS is the whole house". AGNT OS is a rebuild of the systems that run our deals and payouts, due in early 2027. And it's being built on Nexus, a platform that came out of eXp International.

Nexus puts your CRM, transaction management, listings, e-signature, marketing and recruiting behind one login. It's one codebase that adapts to each country's rules, so it can work for Australia as well as it does for Mexico or the UK. It cut its teeth in an alpha across Latin America and is now in beta through the Hub. eXp reckons it could cut a market's software costs by up to 70%, and it's opening up the Nexus APIs so you can feed your own data into whatever AI you like.

The plan is to roll it out to pilot markets first, then across more countries, and eventually offer it on subscription to agents and brokerages outside eXp. Tech built outside the US, for markets like ours, is now becoming the foundation for the whole company. That still gives me goosebumps.

Hello, Switzerland

Our next new country is Switzerland, with Mehrdad Bonakdar leading the charge. That takes eXp to 11 countries in Europe. Swiss chocolate is world-class, and we reckon the eXp model is too.

Felix Bravo, our Managing Director of International, made a point on stage that stuck with me. In a lot of countries outside North America, agents have never had revenue share or a real shot at building their own brand. Swiss agents often earn far less than US agents selling the same number of homes. That's the gap we're walking into. Felix also confirmed we're heading into Abu Dhabi and growing in Mauritius. Asked which countries come next, he said, "All of them, eventually."

eXp Commercial is coming to Australia

If you work in commercial, listen up. eXp Commercial brings the same cloud model and revenue share to office, retail, industrial and investment property. In two years it's attracted around 700 agents, and after launching in Ontario it put out its first Canada Top Producers list in 2025.

Now it's coming here 2027 is going to be a big year. If you've been sending commercial work elsewhere because there was nowhere for it at eXp, come and have a chat with me.

A few other things worth remembering

Leo was frank about the US market, with rates creeping into the sevens and a softer year ahead. Our market's different, but the lesson travels. When things get tight, anything that saves you time or money is worth a look.

Gary Vaynerchuk's  session was standing room only he told the room he'd posted 931 pieces of content in a single day across 10 platforms, and called our objections to AI and posting "excuses". Ouch. Fair, though.

And COO Wendy Forsythe gave us the line I've stuck on a Post-it above my desk: "Our mission is to be the most agent-centric brokerage on the planet."

See you in London

Mark your calendar. eXpcon London runs 6 to 8 July 2027 at the London Hilton on Park Lane. Glenn, Leo, Felix and UK Country Leader Adam Day will all be there, along with speakers from across our international markets. As Adam said, "this isn't simply a UK event." It's a great chance to build referral relationships with agents from Europe, the Middle East and further afield.