AI in action: How Tidalwave and NEXA are equipping LO’s with the right tools

HousingWire

Diane Yu, CEO and co-founder of Tidalwave, and Mike Kortas, CEO of NEXA Mortgage, join Allison LaForgia for an exclusive conversation to explore the newly announced partnership between Tidalwave and NEXA Mortgage. Tidalwave’s technology, which pushes past the industry hype to deliver meaningful change and innovation, will now be available to NEXA’s loan officers, advancing Tidalwave’s mission to transform mortgage lending.   Mike discusses the strategic timing behind adopting AI and how NEXA plans to enhance loan officer productivity while preserving the personal touch that borrowers value. The conversation also covers the promise to boost loan officer effectiveness and borrower trust as the industry looks toward 2026.    #AIMortgage #MortgageBroker #TechPartnership #NexaMortgage

Transcript

00:00From the George Bush Center in Dallas, Texas, I'm Allison LaForgia, and today I am joined

00:13in a joint interview with Tidal Wave CEO, Diane Yu, and Mike Cordes, who is the CEO of Nexa Mortgage.

00:21Thank you both for joining me, and congratulations on your partnership, which was just announced.

00:26So glad to be here.

00:27Diane, let's start with you, and let's talk a little bit about the vision behind Tidal Wave,

00:34which is an AI-first platform that's making some major traction in the industry.

00:40How is this collaboration with Nexa aligning with the mission over at Tidal Wave?

00:48So the partnership and the customer, and they're just coming so naturally together,

00:54because we at Tidal Wave, we're always proud of ourselves.

01:00We want to make sure that we shift left.

01:02We want to engage with our customers' borrower and help them perfect the file,

01:10and then help everything downstream.

01:13So I remember the first day when I had the conversation with Mike and Jason, saying,

01:20you know what?

01:21I'm not even sure we have the right product for you because we never had a broker as a customer.

01:26And then they were saying, no, no, no, okay, we watched your demo.

01:29We know you were super close.

01:33And if we just work together, bring the very last mile together,

01:38we're going to create history for the brokerage industry.

01:42Let's do that together.

01:43So that's how the customer, you know, basically the partnership came along.

01:47It was really great.

01:48So Mike, as the CEO of the largest mortgage brokerage,

01:55what drew you to Tidal Wave specifically, and why now?

02:00Well, she actually hit the nail on the head with what drew us to Tidal Wave.

02:04We've contacted a lot of different AI companies in this perspective.

02:07We've been looking for this.

02:09We saw some things out there that we realized quickly this is going to change everything.

02:12And if you don't get involved in it now, you suffer being extinct tomorrow.

02:16So we realized that we knew that we're always trying to make changes

02:21and make our loan officers' lives better.

02:23But when we were able to finally reach out to Diane and her team,

02:27it really became obvious that they were willing to listen,

02:31they were willing to think, because everybody else only dealt with IMBs.

02:34They didn't deal with somebody who was predominantly in a brokerage environment

02:37because brokers are very fragmented.

02:40They only have two to five people at them.

02:43So it was only like a brokerage the size of Nexa that could actually get something done for the TPO channel.

02:50So we recognized that their willingness to listen and talk,

02:54and so then we were able to create a better marketplace for the entire environment.

02:58But it was really their willingness to be open.

03:00Diane was actually open, took a call from Jason at 11 o'clock at night at her time,

03:05stayed on the phone with him, talked to him about it.

03:07And you can tell in the way when you really get to sit down with Diane for multiple times,

03:13you can see the methodicalness in how she thinks.

03:16You can see her thinking to some degree.

03:19But she never, ever just blew it off.

03:24She wanted to hear it out.

03:25And that's what we knew was a great partnership.

03:27But for the answer of why now, really, I think now was the wrong time is the reality.

03:36I think six months ago would have been the right time.

03:39So if Diane and I were able to find each other back in January,

03:43the things that we could have accomplished up until now would have been enormous.

03:46But I believe that we'll pick up for lost time very quickly,

03:51and we're going to see this thing really, really expand for the entire markets.

03:53So let's spend a minute talking about how Diane's a little bit different,

03:58how Tidal Wave is a little bit different.

04:00AI is one of those buzzwords where there's a lot of talk in the industry.

04:05But there's a lot of companies who are part of that talk who haven't really moved the needle.

04:12What sets Tidal Wave apart from competitors?

04:17So Tidal Wave, since day one, when we set out to do,

04:20we are not just set out to do an AI chatbot.

04:24We want to create a system, a fully integrated system to truly solve and create a solution.

04:32And that's the difference.

04:33So it took us two years.

04:35I was not kidding.

04:38You know, when the day that AI become a thing,

04:42chat GPT become a known, you know, household name,

04:45since that day, we know, hey, the last piece of this capability is there.

04:51So we want to build AI at its core, build a capability,

04:56the system that can truly help our customer, the lenders, now the broker,

05:02and who knows who, you know, what else, other category of the customer that could find usage.

05:07So the idea there is, and you have to have a fully embedded capability,

05:13and you have to help your customer in a way that truly take away the task, right?

05:20Not add on task, not just give you a whole bunch of work to do,

05:24but actually do the work for you.

05:26In order to do the work for you, it takes a lot of integration.

05:30So we spent the last two years doing integration with credit,

05:34integration with asset, integration with the bank statement evaluation,

05:38and the Fannie and the Friday.

05:39And that finally, the final product is ready.

05:43And that's what's enabled, you know, basically people like Nexa could launch in two weeks.

05:49And it never happened before, and they made the record.

05:52You both are launching this across an extensive network.

05:56How are you thinking of operationalizing the AI piece of this?

06:04And how are you keeping the human interaction at the center?

06:10Well, for me, growth is easy.

06:13I'm not scared of growth.

06:15There's no fear in growth to me.

06:17We grew Nexa Mortgage to the largest mortgage broker in U.S. history in four years.

06:22So we're not, seven years in, we're looking for new things.

06:25We're looking for new challenges.

06:26Our loan officers, we have an extensive communication with them, so it's very easy.

06:30I did a meeting with them just before this interview, in fact, where they're extremely excited.

06:34They want to get on it.

06:35They want to do this.

06:37They understand the future of it.

06:39So it won't be difficult for us to really do it.

06:42It's just going to be able to control the massive amount of questions that they have.

06:45But we have an extensive support network that is going through it first.

06:49As Diane's indicated, we have already had some loans go into the system, but that's our support team.

06:53Those are the people who support our loan officers, who train our loan officers, who teach them.

06:56So we have an entire support platform for that as well.

07:01And as far as the humanistic part of this whole thing, I think that's the best part of AI.

07:05Everybody's afraid it's going to take them away or take them out of it.

07:08In my opinion, it's going to put the loan officers into what they enjoy the most.

07:12It's going to put the loan officers directly into, and loan officers are natural salespeople.

07:16We're naturally socializers.

07:18It's going to allow us to do that 10 times more than what we've been doing.

07:22Because what we really don't do well is the paperwork part of it.

07:27And this is going to take care of that.

07:29So we're excited about what it does for loan officers' lives.

07:32So let's lean in and talk a little bit more about increasing the effectiveness of those human interactions.

07:40What is some of the chatter that you just mentioned you've heard from the people who are actually going to be implementing this

07:48and what they're excited about for the enhancement capabilities of those human-to-human conversations?

07:55So they're excited because, as I said, loan officers by nature are ADD, if you will, right?

08:03We're salespeople, alpha, high-drive people, right?

08:09But we get frustrated with mundane tasks.

08:12Probably one of the problems with getting a mortgage for the average consumer is a loan officer can get frustrated pretty quickly

08:16and they can lose a little bit of focus.

08:19AI doesn't lose focus.

08:21It doesn't do that.

08:22It just keeps doing it, right?

08:23Underwriters and lenders hate when you piecemeal conditions.

08:29AI doesn't care.

08:30Underwriters, loan officers love to piecemeal conditions.

08:33AI doesn't care if you do it.

08:35It's fine with it.

08:36So you can just log in and talk to the loan.

08:38You don't have to talk to the consumer anymore.

08:40So loan officers, like I said, we're going to be able to go out and do the things we do.

08:44We're going to be able to socialize, go to events.

08:46We just have to drive as many people into our AI platform as humanly possible.

08:51So we'll be able to do 10 times as many loans as we had in the past.

08:54So it seems like there's not only a benefit to the loan officers who will be implementing this,

08:59but also for that borrower experience.

09:01100%.

09:02For a borrower to be able to log into the system themselves and talk to their own loan.

09:06What is wrong with them?

09:07What do you need from me?

09:08To talk to it and work with the loan itself to provide a solution for them to get the financing they need for their home.

09:16So that's an enormous difference in comparison to how it's done now.

09:20Absolutely.

09:21Now let's end with a forward-looking moment.

09:24What are we excited about where we're at the very beginning of this partnership?

09:28What are we excited about for the future?

09:29I'm super excited the opportunity to win together because together we're going into a different category.

09:37A category that, you know, taking tidal waves resource alone just won't be able to get in

09:44because we have too much, a lot of traction on the lender front already.

09:49But with this partnership, with their operational expertise, with their business expertise,

09:54and the max team will just be able to take over powered by tidal wave everywhere they go.

10:02And then that's amazing, you know.

10:04And I think one day, and then it will be in my dream, that we can help all the borrowers who work with a loan officer,

10:13help them to get to the pre-approval mortgage application on the point of interaction,

10:21like in real time, get right there to help all those customers ever want to get a mortgage.

10:27And that will be my dream.

10:30Yeah.

10:30What I'm most excited about really with the partnership is I truly believe that Diane and her team at tidal wave,

10:35what they're able to doing can really change the entire TPO sector

10:41so that they can now all be a part of this as well.

10:45And they won't be left out from the, specifically from the front end that we're being left out on.

10:51So she's going to help change that.

10:53And I can't wait to see what the end of 2026 looks like.

10:56Well, it sounds like this is the beginning of a very exciting partnership.

11:00It sounds like there's going to be a lot of things that happen,

11:03not just for the loan officers who are getting access to the technology,

11:06but it seems like there's going to be a lot of impact to the borrowers themselves.

11:10So congratulations to both of you.

11:12And I'm excited to see what comes from this.

12:18You

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