Artificial intelligence is moving beyond answering questions and generating content. Increasingly, it can complete the routine work that consumes an originator’s day.
That shift could allow mortgage companies to increase production without adding support staff at the same rate. It could also give originators more time to advise borrowers, develop referral relationships, and generate business.
What does that look like in practice?
AngelAi offered one answer Tuesday during NMP’s OriginatorTech Deep Dive, “The Future of Mortgage Is an AI Workforce,” presented by the mortgage technology company.
The webinar featured Pavan Agarwal, founder and CEO of Celligence, creator of AngelAi, and CEO of Sun West Mortgage Company; Chuck La Flair, president of All In Lending; Jennifer Vallinayagam, chief operating officer of Sun West; and Angel Sumlin, managing director of organizational development at Sun West and AngelAi.
The panel demonstrated how users can create and train an Angel Agent to research prospects, maintain notes, calculate loan scenarios, manage communications, build websites, and complete other assigned tasks.
The broader promise of an AI workforce is more capacity without the same increase in headcount. AngelAi’s proposition is that originators can achieve that by assigning repetitive work to an AI agent, leaving them more time for the borrower relationships and business development that still require a human.
From Software Tool To AI Worker
Sumlin described a shift away from the traditional software model, in which mortgage companies purchase multiple platforms, hire employees to operate them, and then pay for additional technology to connect them.
With Angel Agents, she said, users tell the agent what they need completed instead of learning and navigating another system.
During the demonstration, Sumlin created an agent, assigned it a professional role, selected its personality, and chose skills including note-taking and web research.
Users can also establish constraints, including prohibiting an agent from discussing certain topics or requiring approval before it executes an action.
“If you want every single thing your agent does approved, you can select that,” Sumlin said.
The agent was then instructed to research a person before a meeting and save the resulting information for later use. Vallinayagam said an originator could use that capability to prepare for an unexpected meeting with a real estate agent, broker, or prospective referral partner.
“When you’re going and meeting with a stranger, and you have information about that person, that’s going to help you open that conversation,” Vallinayagam said. “That builds the connection instantly.”
More Production Without More Headcount
AngelAi positioned its agents as a way for mortgage companies to increase capacity without adding fixed overhead at the same rate.
When pipelines grew in the past, lenders and brokerages typically added processors, loan originator assistants, and other employees. Those hires brought salaries, benefits, training costs, and other expenses that remained if production later declined.
“What AI is giving you for the first time is pretty much a variable cost,” Sumlin said. “You can increase your capacity without increasing your fixed overhead at the same rate.”
Agarwal said Sun West already uses AngelAi to perform work that historically required processors.
“We originate hundreds of retail loans every month through our distributed retail channel,” he said. “We don’t have any loan processors. AI does literally everything.”
Rather than leaving the company, Agarwal said, Sun West’s former processors moved into production-oriented roles.
“The processors that we had, they became loan officers or they became account executives,” he said.
NMP previously reported that AngelAi processed 75% of borrower-submitted documents at Sun West in 2023. By 2024, the company said only about 6.5% of submitted documents were being flagged for human review.
Sun West had reduced its underwriting staff from 40 employees at its 2020 peak to 11, according to that report. The remaining underwriters handled exceptions and helped train the system.
Agarwal said during Tuesday’s webinar that Sun West can fully underwrite a loan for less than $125 using its technology.
“You have to cut those costs down,” he said. “This is the platform where you can cut your costs down.”
An Originator Puts Angel Agents To Work
La Flair provided a firsthand account of using an Angel Agent inside his mortgage business.
He said one of his support employees initially feared for her position after he began using the agent because he stopped asking her to complete many of the routine tasks she previously handled.
“The second that I began with my Angel Agent, she started getting fearful of her job because I wasn’t asking her for anything anymore,” La Flair said.
But the employee was also a licensed originator. With fewer administrative responsibilities, she had more time to generate business.
“Now she had more time to focus on income-producing activities,” La Flair said. “Now she’s making more money than she ever has.”
La Flair said his Angel Agent can run payment scenarios and calculate temporary buydowns for multiple properties.
“Those things can get done in two seconds,” he said. “Right off the bat, we had amazing efficiency.”
After approximately four months of using the product, La Flair said AngelAi has become a central part of All In Lending’s operations, including processing, loan originator assistance, licensing, coaching, finance, and lead generation.
He also used his agent to build four websites that are producing leads, despite having no previous coding experience, he said.
La Flair advised originators to identify the results they want instead of limiting themselves to a predetermined list of AI functions.
“A lot of people know they need AI, but they’re not sure how to integrate it into their businesses,” he said. “You have to just know what you want, then just ask.”
For La Flair, the advantage is not replacing the originator. It is increasing how much an originator and team can accomplish.
“It’s going to make people go very high into production because they’re going to be able to reach places that they were never able to reach before at a fraction of the cost,” he said.
More Than Mortgage Tasks
AngelAi also demonstrated a tool that guides a consumer through creating a sample will.
Agarwal said the capability could help originators provide value to clients beyond the mortgage transaction and maintain longer-term relationships. But he stressed that originators must not present the service as legal advice.
“You have to explain that you’re not giving legal advice,” he said. “You’re giving them access to a tool.”
He said consumers should treat the generated documents as samples and have their own attorneys review them.
AngelAi also discussed tools for electronic signatures, insurance, tax preparation, calendar management, email triage, website development, and borrower budgeting.
Agarwal said Sun West eliminated more than $50,000 in monthly DocuSign expenses after implementing Angel Sign internally.
“That went to zero,” he said.
Angel Agents can connect with third-party platforms, Agarwal added, allowing users to direct an agent to perform work across different systems.
Agents And Twins Serve Different Roles
Vallinayagam also clarified the distinction between an Angel Agent and the company’s previously introduced Angel Twin.
An Angel Twin is designed to act as a digital version of an originator when communicating with consumers. An Angel Agent functions more like a personal assistant that completes assigned tasks.
“Your twin is basically a replica of you,” Vallinayagam said. “Your Angel Agent is basically doing tasks for you as a personal assistant.”
Both are powered through Angel points earned by using the platform. AngelAi said users who create an account and attend a live workshop receive points that can be converted into tokens to run their agents.
The company plans to make self-service Angel Agent creation available beginning Aug. 17, Vallinayagam said. Microsoft integration and a skill designed to help borrowers prepare and track monthly budgets are also planned.
For originators, AngelAi’s proposition is that the work surrounding a loan no longer has to consume as much of their day. The agent can handle more of the research, calculations, correspondence, and administrative follow-up, while the originator remains responsible for the relationship and the business strategy.
The conversation continues this week at the Originator Connect Conference in Las Vegas, where AngelAi and other mortgage technology providers will explore how emerging tools can help originators increase production and operate more efficiently.
