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From enabling hyper-personalized customer experiences and reducing manual tasks to significantly reducing cycle times and costs, AI ushers in an era of boundless value creation.

Below, a survey of 200 senior executives from the U.S. mortgage industry uncovers ten takeaways that highlight a crucial message for leaders: adapt to this transformation today or risk disruption.



Mortgage executives say that the arrival of AI is revolutionary. Over half agree that AI is revolutionizing key processes and nearly half also say that the degree of expected upheaval could amount to industry disruption.

As this wave builds, it could unleash an array of ripple effects, including increased competition between existing players, new market entrants, industry consolidation and enhanced regulatory compliance.



Executives believe that AI will help them address a variety of key objectives. At the strategic level, they say it will help them reduce operating costs, deliver personalized customer experiences as well as improve customer experiences and reduce cycle times.

Just how AI accomplishes these feats becomes clearer at the granular level. Specific use cases cited by respondents include:

  • Predicting a banking customer is ready to buy a home (58%)
  • Collecting and pre-filling data needed by the customer to complete their application (57%)
  • Sending alerts both to consumers and to the operations team regarding progress or required next steps (57%)
  • Combing external databases to authenticate data (55%)
  • Monitoring markets and social media to provide real-time strategic feedback (54%)
  • Evaluating creditworthiness (51%)
  • Providing relevant, intuitive guidance to customers (48%)



An in-depth look at prioritization illustrates the power, flexibility and interoperability potentially achieved via AI.

Asked to rank four key strategic goals (below), the survey found no single approach to be a clear winner. All four goals obtained similar rankings for first through fourth place.



This analysis shows that firms are choosing different aspects of their business for their forays into AI-infused tools and processes, highlighting the power of AI to handle a wide range of tasks.



Broadly labeled as AI, the technologies driving change throughout the industry include advanced analytics, robotic process automation, machine learning and blockchain. The visualization below illustrates which technologies leaders are currently implementing or plan to utilize in the near future.



Solutions are everywhere—but so far they’re more task-focused than end-to-end. In terms of customer-facing solutions, 75% of firms report having at least one currently supported or driven by AI. However, this relatively high figure is achieved only by combining a range of discrete processes. Loan application is the most frequently cited customer solution now using AI, followed by documentation, marketing and closing.

Overall, 83% report having at least one back-office solution driven by AI. This is based on eight sub-processes, with the top three most cited including loan servicing, title search/registration and underwriting.



Though current deployments tend to focus on discrete activities, the many proofs of concept and pilots underway are a pathway to interrelated solutions. For example, 90% are running back-office proofs of concept; the figure is 71% for customer-facing solutions. Turning to pilots, 88% are testing back office tools; 75% for the front office. As more solutions come online and more firms gain experience in digital tool development, more opportunities for integration will emerge, eventually leading to end-to-end AI support.



About one in five executives believes that their firm is either industry-leading or world class in terms of leveraging AI relative to their peers. This figure increases for the largest firms surveyed and for firms with high growth.

To test these self-assessments, researchers also explored the state of AI implementation across companies: for businesses with more digitally advanced processes, more points were assigned. The analysis revealed that respondents in the top fifth of this point system were more than twice as likely to self-describe as industry-leading or world class.

World class and industry-leading firms are not only deploying more AI than others, but they also report achieving more positive results from their AI investments.


AI will impact the workplace and the responsibilities of human workers. Respondents say AI will change the nature of work performed by humans, essentially handing mundane, repetitive tasks to machines and requiring the workforce to upgrade its skills.

AI is also expected to improve the quality of the workplace. Not only will it allow talent to focus on more creative activities with higher value-add, but workers themselves could become more effective.



As this evolution takes shape and companies implement AI, hurdles emerge. The most frequently cited issues include:

  • Obtaining senior management buy-in (56%)
  • Building a business case for investing in AI technologies and capabilities (55%)
  • Understanding the breadth of opportunities (53%)
  • Instilling cross-functional cooperation/planning (52%)

Other obstacles include the challenges of understanding specific opportunities, coping with legacy technology, addressing talent needs and changing the culture and workplace. Companies are also concerned with potential risks including cybersecurity risk, AI “bias” risk, regulatory issues and workplace risks.


A shift to AI-infused business processes won’t be easy for all companies to successfully navigate on their own. Findings show that the industry grasps this: companies are planning to invest in initiatives and partnerships that support transformation.

While there are no one-size-fits-all approaches, results point to useful ideas to consider as the industry evolves. The three most frequently cited include collaboration with universities/incubators, significantly improving the data environment (migrating to the cloud or creating a data lake, for example) and outsourcing processes to external providers.