Earlier this month, David Hyman, co-founder and chief executive officer of Lendi Group, opened the Thrive25 conference in Sydney by telling a few jokes — all written live on stage with the use of artificial intelligence.
"AI is a game-changer," he told the crowd. "AI is no longer a novelty. It's here to stay.
"This isn't just another tech wave — it's the fastest-changing era ever recorded," Hyman continued. "The cycles of innovation are shorter; the lifespan of business models is shrinking. If the industry does not adapt, it will be irrelevant — not in decades, but in years."
Hyman ended his presentation by using AI to call every broker in the audience — more than 900 — at the same time, each receiving a personalized voice message.
Brad Cramb, chief distribution officer at Lendi Group, said this is just another example of what's possible.
"AI can take tedious, basic tasks away from brokers so they can spend that on meaningful relationships," he told Australian Broker. "Imagine AI doing the general discovery phone calls with clients before we connect them to a broker."
It's little surprise that so many lenders and aggregators are eager to get in on the action in any way they can. A 2023 report by the Australian Banking Association found that nearly 99% of bank transactions in Australia happen online. And as the global digital economy continues to move at a breakneck pace, lenders and aggregators alike have little choice but to stay on top of new technology.
But so far, it appears Australia's financial and mortgage communities are on board with the challenge.
Lendi uses an AI-powered platform to combine data, insights and automation — such as broker-client call summaries, leads, document collection, AI agents that have human-like decisioning capabilities and more — in one place. Big bank Westpac partnered with Accenture earlier this year to create artificial intelligence-powered "agents", or bots — aka Agentic AI — that may one day be able to process loan applications by mimicking human decision-making. In February, Sydney-based brokerage and fintech firm LoanOptions.AI updated its loan application technology, reducing the whole process to under an hour, thanks to AI. Other big banks, such as ANZ, offer AI-powered personal assistants and call centres, while NAB uses AI for document verification, loan approvals and customer inquiries.
"Technology is an enabler for us to continue to serve our customers," said George Srbinovski, Ubank's head of broker distribution. The non-bank lender is owned by NAB.
"Technology should be doing the heavy lifting around the data entry," Srbinovski said. "All the bits and pieces, so brokers can continue to serve their customers, spend more time with their customers, have meaningful conversations with their customers, get to know their requirements and objectives — what they want to do, and not just with the loan — and then move on. [Technology] gives brokers more time to serve more people, more customers."
The thinking, according to CBA group executive for technology Gavin Munroe, was that having a tech hub so close to the likes of tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, among others, would allow CBA specialists to accelerate their own rate of AI adoption.
"Our teams will bring new ideas back to Australia to enhance how we work, while boosting the knowledge and expertise in Australia’s tech ecosystem," he said.
Now, the question is, as artificial intelligence continues to reshape Australia's mortgage industry, are brokers ready?
Adam Brown, NAB broker distribution executive, said it's not just lenders who should be paying attention to advances in technology.
"Brokers should be looking at AI and how that helps them in their business," Brown said. "We are looking for efficiencies as a bank. I'm sure brokers are looking for efficiencies as well. And technology can help with that, whether it's automation, whether it's artificial intelligence or other things."
Meanwhile, some market players — including brokers — have already discovered the benefits of AI.
"To do a home loan, there's a lot of compliance, a lot of paperwork. And AI is going to have a lot of influence on streamlining that process," said Chris Hall, founder and managing director at Sydney-based Blue Crane Capital.
Steve Sampson, chief executive officer of non-bank lender Prime Capital, added that AI is a major time — and potential money — saver.
“We find that in our space — commercial businesses — when they need money, they need it fast. So AI is an essential tool to help everyone," Sampson said.
"For document processing, loan approvals, things like that, we use AI to make sure the application meets (or doesn’t meet) our initial criteria," he said. "Aside from setting up the technology, AI is not difficult. If the application meets the criteria, it automatically will send out an approval, and that really cuts down the paperwork. Nobody is typing stuff into a database anymore. If the application doesn’t meet our approval a BDM will then intervene accordingly.
"But I also think we've got to be careful as to what kind of responsibility we put onto this machine," Sampson said. "AI, in some spaces, requires some human intervention as well. So it's wonderful, provided it's used in the right way. It's got to be controlled."
Moving forward, Julian Fayad, founder and chief executive officer of LoanOptions.AI, predicted that in the next 12 months, Australia's loan market will look very different.
"There'll be some models that are broken forever," he said. "AI is definitely going to disrupt. Brokers need to either adapt or they won't survive.
"At the moment, we've got a lot of brokers who outsource and offshore different types of repetitive tasks," Fayad said. "Most of that will be able to be handled by AI at much lower costs [in the future]. And it will be much more scalable because it can run around the clock.
"There are people who work nine to five. But an AI agent can run 24/7 and on public holidays and won't have any sick days," he said. "So loans can get decisions and work tracked and submitted to lenders [at all hours.] Because AI is just doing data entry. But it's much faster and can help scale [the business] faster and at a much lower cost to the broker.
"But customers also want human connection," Fayad said. "And so what brokers have to be careful of is not to outsource the wrong things, the part that actually adds value. The human connection is still required for complex strategy and advice and all those kinds of things. If brokers try to replace themselves with AI [where human connection is required], that's going to be a problem. Customers still want to know that an expert, a human being, is actually the one making the call on their behalf."
