- 1 week ago
In this conversation with HousingWire’s Allison LaForgia, Moder President and CEO Erik Anderson and Bonnie Chong, Executive Vice President and Head of Moder AI, Innovation & Shared Services, discuss how connected intelligence is changing mortgage operations. They explore why successful AI Adoption starts with data and business model transformation, how Moder’s ModeIQ platform connects intelligence across organizations and lessons from implementation at Freedom Mortgage. Anderson and Chong share how connected intelligence can help lenders improve operational efficiency and deliver better customer experiences.
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00:12From Chicago with HousingWire, I'm Allison LaForgia, and today I am sitting down with
00:18two executives from Motor. I have Eric Anderson, the President and CEO, and Bonnie Chung,
00:24the Executive Vice President and Head of Motor AI. Bonnie, Eric, thank you for coming to talk to
00:30me today. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us, yeah. I am excited to jump in and I want
00:36to
00:36start with how Motor has positioned itself. You've positioned yourself as an intelligence company
00:43rather than simply an AI or a technology company. What does that distinction mean and how does it
00:49shape how Motor approaches helping mortgage companies operate and grow? That's a great
00:55question. I'm glad we're starting off with that. I think our positioning as an intelligence company
01:00really goes back to our heritage and why we founded the company five and a half years ago.
01:07Intelligence is an outcome, right? AI is a tool, technology is a tool. All these different things
01:12are tools, but intelligence is really an outcome. And since the founding of the company, we've been
01:16incredibly focused on helping our customers get to better outcomes. And so, you know, it's what we
01:23do with AI. Yes, AI is used as part of what we're doing to create the intelligence necessary for these
01:29companies to get to the right outcomes. You know, but so are our people, right? We've got over 8,000
01:34people working for our 92 customers all around the country and around the world. And what they're
01:40surfacing, what they're doing, what the AI is doing, what the technology is enabling, all of that creates
01:47this intelligence that allows our customers to run their businesses better and navigate these cycles.
01:53Bonnie, you said something that I thought was so interesting. You talked about connected intelligence.
02:00When we talk about connected intelligence, what does that actually look like?
02:04Yeah, so think about it this way. Today, when a customer calls a company
02:11and asks a question about his or her account, the answers lie in various systems. They lie maybe with
02:20a couple of vendors and probably employee emails and databases that are housed inside. And so today,
02:28when you have to get good answers for those questions, it takes time. It takes a lot of people involved,
02:32it takes a lot of time. But imagine a world where when that question comes in, everything is at your
02:39fingertips instantaneously. So the customer experience is that much more improved because
02:45you get a comprehensive and an accurate answer. And not only that, connected intelligence also offers
02:52the opportunity for the best context. And that context layer allows for AI agents to perform, to analyze,
03:00to recommend actions, and also to take actions if you want them to.
03:05That is such an interesting concept. But I think we have to acknowledge that there is something that
03:12goes into this, right? The actual adoption of it. So, Eric, what do lenders often get wrong when they
03:19approach AI implementation and adoption? Yeah, and I think it's an easy mistake to make. But I would
03:25say the first thing that we see a lot of organizations struggle with is they think it's a technology
03:31decision. And the reality is it's a business model decision, right? And so you start with,
03:38what do I want my business model to look like? And what does it need to look like? And what
03:43should it
03:43look like given what AI can now enable my people to do? And you work backwards from that, right? And
03:51so,
03:51ultimately, the tools you use, the workflows you build, the people in the roles, the training,
03:58all of that is geared around determining your future business model. And so, I think,
04:03you know, I think that's really the first thing. I think the second thing that happens is
04:07people think it is a workflow and model decision, but it is first and foremost data, right? You have to
04:16get the data right. And AI is, in some ways, no different than the human brain, right? You could
04:22be the smartest person in the world. But if you have no exposure to something, historically, or you
04:29have the wrong exposure to something, you're most likely going to come to the wrong answer or the wrong
04:35conclusion. And so, it's really important that you start with the data. And so, that's why,
04:40you know, with ModeIQ, the first several weeks and sometimes months of work is all about getting
04:48the data ready and building what we call the ontology. And that ontology is your business
04:53model encoded in data, right? So that, ultimately, when you choose to deploy AI, whatever AI it is,
05:00whether it's one of the frontier models, or whether it's your own open weight model, right? Anything in
05:06between, the model is referencing your data and the data that you want it to reference,
05:11and it's referencing in a way that it's able to consume. And that allows the AI to take or make
05:17or come to the right decision or outcome or conclusion. Now, Bonnie, I want to go back to that
05:24connected intelligence. And when we were talking, you mentioned the effect of it, that you were saying
05:35that there's a compounding effect as parts of an organization become connected. What does that
05:41unlock that several single AI solutions can? Yeah. So, single point solutions, and many of them are
05:50quite effective, right? They address issues that are in disparate portions of an organization. So,
05:58organizations tend to say, hey, I would like to deploy AI. What is the quickest and easiest way to do
06:04that? And they see a sector of their operations, and they say, let's go fix that. And then they
06:09see something somewhere else, and let's go fix that. And these solutions, some of them, again,
06:15are very good, but they operate within their own data ecosystem. They don't necessarily talk to each
06:21other. With ModeIQ, and going back to the concept of connected intelligence, what happens is that every
06:29time a decision is made, an action is taken, a recommendation is made, more data comes in and
06:35feeds through that intelligent ecosystem, it gets smarter over time, right? So, the connected intelligence
06:42actually gets more intelligent every transaction that comes through it. And so, why that matters is
06:49that the value of ModeIQ to an organization grows exponentially the more that ontology is built,
06:57and the more it is utilized. That is so interesting. And it doesn't surprise me because I know that
07:05Motors had incredible success with the Freedom Mortgage rollout. What's it that teach you about turning AI
07:12from an idea into real operational value? Yeah, I think the first thing is, it's really hard.
07:22You know, and I think one of the mistakes that we all make is, you know, we've been exposed to
07:26chat GPT,
07:26and now you've got Claude and Gemini and all these other, and they appear so easy. We just ask it
07:32a
07:32question or tell it to do something, and it immediately does it. And it's like, wow, this is
07:36almost like magic, right? But what we don't see is all the hard work. And what we don't see is
07:41all the
07:42standardized data that it was trained on. Even being trained on the World Wide Web, the internet,
07:47that data by definition is standardized. Every website is built the same way using the same language,
07:52and looks and feels in a way that is very easily consumable and contextualizable,
07:57right? And so deploying AI into enterprises that are regulated and leading to ROI,
08:05that is incredibly hard work, right? So I think a few things are required. The first one is you really
08:10have to clarify the win. Like, hey, if we're going to go out, we're going to select these tools,
08:15or we're going to do this transformation. What does it look like at the end? What is success,
08:20right? So that clarifying the win is really important because that's how you kind of
08:24organize everyone, and so many decisions flow through that. I think the second thing is you
08:29have to dedicate teams to this. We have dedicated teams. Our customers that are seeing success like
08:36Freedom have large dedicated teams that are making this happen. They're not trying to do this,
08:41you know, at 4pm on a Thursday because they, you know, rush through the rest of their work there.
08:46This is their job to make it successful. And so I think that like dedicated teams is the second
08:52thing that's really important. And then the last thing I would say is, you have to have incredibly
08:57good reporting reporting, not just about what has happened, but reporting that shows you exactly what
09:03is going to happen to get to that original win that that defined, clarified win of what does this look
09:09like? What does the ROI like? What does my operating model look like? All that. So this reporting helps,
09:13you know, am I on track or am I off track? And so again, that's something that we've worked incredibly
09:19hard with Freedom on is just getting the reporting, the weekly reporting that comes out telling us,
09:23are we doing the right things? Are we on track? Really dialed in.
09:28Now, looking ahead, if you gaze into your crystal balls, what do you think connected intelligence will
09:35make possible that wasn't possible six or, I mean, we'll really throw it back to 12 months ago,
09:40the pace of innovation has been incredible. But what does, what does this unlock for the industry?
09:47I think a couple of things. I think organizations now have the ability when they see the ontology
09:54and then when they see IQ work, they have an opportunity to redesign how they actually operate
10:00today, right? So it's not about automating how you get from A to B. It's about how do you get
10:06to A to B
10:07better and quicker. And then the other thing I would say is for regulated industries, things can change.
10:14And when you don't have intelligence that's connected six months ago or a year ago, that
10:19becomes a six to nine month project just to update one or two business rules. But when everything's
10:25connected, it's like, can you do this from nine to 10 in the morning on a Tuesday? And so I
10:29think
10:30that those are two major differences that is now possible. Yeah, I think there's probably two main
10:36things that come to mind. I think the first one is more tactical, but very important for anyone that's
10:42watching this. You know, we're in a very difficult interest rate environment and our base case is
10:48that environment is not going to improve for the next few years and it could worsen and it could
10:52worsen materially. And so practically speaking, if you are an originations organization, you know,
10:59if you're a bank or a lender or an IMB that is originating, connected intelligence is what is going
11:05to allow you to get through this period of time. And this period of time might be two years,
11:10it might be 10 years, we don't know, but it is the connected intelligence and what you're able to
11:15do with business model reinvention in the AI that will allow you to get to the other side.
11:21And I would say the second thing, and this is going to take some time to get there, but unquestionably,
11:28connected intelligence is going to allow our industry to deliver better loans faster at a better price
11:38point for the consumer. And so ultimately, when we look way ahead, connected intelligence, if we have
11:44our way and our connected intelligence is what is powering part of the industry, the customers we have
11:49using our platform with connected intelligence are going to be benefiting the consumer in a way that
11:55we have not been able to over the last 30 to 40 years. And I'm really excited about that.
11:59Now, Eric, Bonnie, thank you so much for sitting down with me. It has been incredible to listen
12:06to you guys talk about connected intelligence, what Motor is working on, and the success that you guys
12:12had in rolling out this technology and really getting operational value to the people that you partner
12:17with. Thank you so much for having us. Really appreciate it.