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Rocket Companies subsidiary Lendesk Technologies has launched an AI assistant to help mortgage professionals sift through the finer points of more than 7,000 mortgage options, reducing the research and policy analysis needed to identify the right product for their clients and answer questions they may have.
Lender Spotlight AI Assistant is available to Canadian mortgage professionals who subscribe to Lender Spotlight Platinum for an additional $29 per seat per month. The AI assistant lets mortgage brokers focus on building relationships and providing expert guidance to their clients, the company said Tuesday in announcing its launch.
Carter Zimmerman
“Instead of spending hours sifting through thousands of options or contacting lenders for information, brokers can receive immediate, accurate responses within seconds,” Lendesk President Carter Zimmerman said in a statement. Brokers can access educational resources from Lendesk to optimize the tool “and implement AI across their entire workflow,” the company said.
In the U.S., the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is monitoring problems that may arise as banks, mortgage servicers and other financial services providers turn over more of their customer service workload to AI-driven chatbots.
Simple, rule-based chatbots have been around for some time, but banks are now using more sophisticated technology employing “large language models” (LLMs), machine learning and artificial intelligence provided by third parties to handle customer service, the bureau noted in a June research report. Although chatbots have proven useful in helping resolve basic inquiries, “their effectiveness wanes as problems become more complex,” the report concluded.
Lender Spotlight AI Assistant is not a chatbot, however; it provides insights that mortgage professionals can decide whether to use or not.
“Lender Spotlight AI Assistant can be utilized in a variety of ways, equipping brokers to customize their experience and search based on their needs,” the company said. “If a broker knows the specific product they are looking for, and has a lender in mind, Lender Spotlight AI Assistant can easily scan only that lender’s programs and policies to offer the best solution.”
It can also be useful if a broker is “looking for a broader recommendation to instances like how to account for spousal support, rental properties or investments — or perhaps is not yet as familiar with niche policies from various lenders.” In these instances, the company said, Lender Spotlight AI Assistant “can do the work to offer a variety of solutions that might fit a client’s parameters.”
Another Rocket subsidiary, Rocket Mortgage Canada, was one of the first companies to test Lendesk’s AI assistant, the companies said.
Hash Aboulhosn
“Our top priority is providing excellent client service — this tool helps lessen time spent searching through lender products, empowering our agents to streamline their workflow and assist clients more knowledgeably and quickly,” Rocket Mortgage Canada President Hash Aboulhosn said in a statement.
Windsor-based Rocket Mortgage Canada acts as a mortgage broker to offer home loans from more than 50 lenders in all 10 Canadian provinces, and this year began offering direct loans in its home province of Ontario.
Expanding into the direct loan business helped Rocket Mortgage Canada expand its product set and allowed the company to match clients with real estate agents, insurance providers and lawyers, the company said in July. Rocket Mortgage Canada signed a preliminary partnership agreement with RESAAS in April, allowing Canadian real estate agents who use the RESAAS platform to send their clients to get prequalified with Rocket Mortgage Canada.
Vancouver, British Columbia-based Lendesk serves the Canadian mortgage industry, providing its Finmo digital mortgage platform, Lender Spotlight (a rates and policies database), and Gateway loan origination system to more than 10,000 mortgage brokers.
Lendesk says it also provides its “plug-and-play” digital mortgage enterprise solution to four of Canada’s five biggest banks.
In February, Lendesk announced it was partnering with Intellifi to help mortgage brokers and lenders automate loan document submissions, with Strive the first lender to adopt the solution.
The new technology allows mortgage brokers to digitally submit client documents directly and securely from Lendesk’s digital mortgage platform, Finmo, to partner lenders via Intellifi.
“The addition of this unified and automated document submission to lenders helps brokers securely and efficiently transfer files to the underwriter, adding convenience and streamlining the process while also significantly reducing the potential for fraud,” Zimmerman in a launch announcement.
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