• It can instill confidence in customers that inspires them to apply for a reverse mortgage more quickly. The result: shorter window to closing. • It coordinates among key players. In traditional scenarios, the customer asks a question. It goes from the broker to the account executive to the scenario desk to managers. Then, it makes its way back. AI produces answers in real time. The result: more time shaved off the process. “Even if you shorten by three days, that can be the difference in getting funding in November versus December,” says Torres. • It can bridge generation gaps. The 62-year-old client is different from the 75-year-old. AI can provide speech-to-text and text-to-speech, which makes websites more accessible. The result: further customization based on the needs of individual customers. • It can converse in multiple languages. Latino households are expected to drive 70 percent of net homeownership gains through 2040, according to the Urban Institute. They and other non-English speakers are building their equity pools. AI translations can overcome the difficulties of translating complex reverse mortgage concepts. Torres has seen “immaculate” translations that end users readily understand in Spanish and the multiple languages spoken in the U.S. The result: the power to reach untapped markets. • It creates better responses. It’s important to know that many AI providers train their bots to mine the vast universe of the web, leading to incorrect and even “hallucinatory” responses. When AI is trained only on the loan provider’s website or knowledge base, it cannot grasp at wrong answers. Torres states that Reachality operates within those constraints, perusing only information provided by the client, and trains its AI to say, “I don’t know the answer to that question” instead of providing inaccurate information. The result: less chance of regulatory missteps. Cleaner materials on the front end also streamline back-end reviews by compliance officers. • And then there is enhanced compliance. Compliance can be a complex step in the marketing process. Training AI to digest marketing materials and provide suggestions decreases the amount of time a marketing piece needs for a compliance team’s approval. The result: faster marketing approvals. Conversational AI also has the power to initiate the questions reverse mortgage lenders typically ask at the outset—age, home value and address. Together, the questions and answers paint a picture of the potential client’s circumstances and concerns. Integrated with customer relationship management software, that information positions the loan officer to continue the discovery call as a comfortable conversation and avoid the “awkward silence of ‘Where do we start?’” Torres says. “There’s no heavy integration or systems management that has to happen,” he says. “We try to keep it simple because if it’s a complex process, we’re not practicing what we preach.” Essentially, “if you can think it up, it can probably happen, which is pretty neat to be alive in a time when I can say that,” he adds. Making It Happen Assessing how AI can help is “the magic question,” Torres says. “Oftentimes, we get so caught up in the way we know how to do things that we don’t know there’s a better way.” The Reachality AI is called Lumina, with Lumina SMB designed for small businesses or loan officers and Lumina Enterprise intended for larger clients and lenders. No matter the size of the enterprise, Torres likes to initiate “what-if” conversations with new clients, exploring business workflow and posing scenarios that could uncover areas of improvement. One Reachality client creates murals for schools but was struggling to showcase its extensive portfolio online. With AI, the mural company now helps potential clients visualize Evangelizing for AI continued from page 23 “Oftentimes, we get so caught up in the way we know how to do things that we don’t know there’s a better way.” —Byron Torres, founder and CEO of Reachality Evangelizing for AI continued on page 26 24 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MARCH-APRIL 2024
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