Survey: AI handles docs, LOs should own the relationship

Mortgage professionals broadly agree that artificial intelligence is about to reshape how they work. But a new industry report suggests that professionals who come out ahead won't be the ones that master software the fastest. Rather, they will be the ones borrowers trust the most. 

A recent survey of more than 300 mortgage professionals conducted by AD Mortgage found that 82% expect AI and automation to be the biggest driver of industry change. 

For now, AI usage skews toward lower-stakes tasks. Research tops the list at 55.7%, followed by marketing content and interpreting investor guidelines. Respondents expect the technology to merge further, eventually handling the bulk of CRM follow-ups, data entry and document collection. 

AD Mortgage CEO Max Slyusarchuk framed the results as evidence that AI is changing mortgage without displacing what actually drives it, saying respondents circled back again and again to, "trust, relationships, communication" as the foundation of long-term success. Lending, he added, will be powered by new technology but will remain a people business at its core. 

Broader trends in industry

AI is spreading fast through back-office and marketing functions, but lenders keep circling back to the borrower relationship as the piece technology can't replicate. The technology is also being used to support talent as 64 percent of loan officers are 50 or older and high turnover puts pressure on already tight margins. 

"The mortgage process is very document centric, so we're seeing increases in the capabilities of document and data ingestion and business rules decisioning," said John Geertsema, managing principal at Capco.

So a lot of the "stare and compare" grunt work of getting a document, looking at the source system, and validating could be taken by AI. 

Agentic AI tools are also taking on a bigger share of the origination process. Still, lenders are building in guardrails that route pricing conversations back to a live loan officer. 

An earlier AD survey found that as many as 55% of brokers were already using AI regularly, even as many said they lacked the training to use the tools effectively.  

For loan officers and brokers, the takeaway isn't to resist AI adoption, but rather be deliberate about where the time it frees up gets reinvested. If routine work like data entry and CRM follow-ups increasingly shifts to automation, as respondents expect, the survey suggests the winners will be professionals who focus on borrower-facing work. This could include explaining loan options and managing expectations during a rising rate environment.

"If they had the forethought to step out of the box and say, not only are we going to do mortgages, we're going to do auto lending. They already have all the capabilities. They just need to configure the workflow," said John Geertsema, managing principal at Capco.