A screenshot of Google’s beta Home Services ad for plumbers in the San Francisco area.

Internet behemoths like Google and Zillow are developing tools and services to assist homebuyers, but agents still see themselves as filling needs that computers just can’t.

After developing a mortgage comparison tool in the U.K. at the beginning of this year, Google began beta-testing Home Services ads for vendors like plumbers and locksmiths in the San Francisco area this summer. Google also markets mapping solutions aimed at real estate agents.

If that isn’t enough, Zillow is acquiring smaller, regional real estate tech companies around the country and partnering with Yahoo Real Estate and others to provide consumers with homebuying information and advice.

Corinne Fitzgerald owns Fitzgerald Real Estate in Greenfield and is the president of the Masschusetts Association of Realtors (MAR). She’s been selling real estate for 27 years and said she doesn’t fear these innovations; in fact, she welcomes any new company or service that gives consumers more access to information.

“The bottom line is: these are tools,” Fitzgerald said. “People still need to have someone guide them through the process of buying and selling, and that’s where Realtors excel.”

Fitzgerald said technology is delivering more information to consumers, faster, and that’s only helping agents match buyers with the right properties.

“I don’t perceive this as a threat to our profession at all. Consumers need professionals who understand the process,” Fitzgerald said. “They don’t have the time or expertise to do it all themselves. I can’t imagine what life would be like if the personal element went away.”

Real Estate Is Relationship-Driven

Lauren Holleran, vice president of Gibson Sotheby’s in Cambridge, has been selling real estate for 11 years. Holleran said she thinks Realtors will make use of the new electronic tools, not compete with them.

“Online marketing is so important to get people in the door, but once they’re there you need someone to manage the transaction,” Holleran said. “It’s a lot more than just zeroes and ones.”

Holleran said there was a time when real estate agents were the gatekeepers of information. Today, people have online access almost anything they want to know about a home they’re considering. Holleran said she thinks that’s good for consumers, and good for her. She said she welcomes anything that helps inform consumers.

“It doesn’t scare me at all,” Holleran said. “It’s all going to evolve and we’re going to evolve with it. I’m more and more amazed how relationship-driven this business is.”

Buyers And Sellers Need Protection

Bill Ryan, of William Raveis Real Estate in Osterville, has been selling real estate on Cape Cod for 17 years. He said he knows agents who are afraid that tools like these could make real estate agents obsolete, the way they made travel agents obsolete 15 years ago, but he doesn’t buy it.

“It’s not like travel, where you might spend $10,000 on a really nice trip,” Ryan said. You’re spending $400,000 on a house. You want to be protected, and that’s what we do. You don’t want to be walking through an open house with just your cell phone.”

Ryan, who was a builder before becoming a real estate agent, said Realtors like him have an expertise that can’t be replaced by algorithms.

“Computers can’t read a FEMA map or make appointments for you,” Ryan said. “When I show houses, I can point out things about the construction to buyers. Will your phone negotiate the best price for you? Will it advise you on contingencies? Will it know how to advise you when you have to sell your house to buy something else?”

Ryan said after Zillow bought Trulia in 2014, he began to hearing agents voicing their concerns that Zillow’s ultimate goal was to open up a real estate office and start taking listings.

When asked to respond to this fear, a representative from Zillow emailed a quote from a 2014 Wall Street Journal story.

“We started Zillow as a media property, not a real-estate brokerage,” Spencer Rascoff, chief executive of Seattle-based Zillow, said in the article. “We sell ads, not houses.”