The mortgage industry stands at a crossroads—while nearly every other sector has embraced digital transformation, mortgage lending remains burdened by manual processes, outdated workflows, and costly inefficiencies. Generative AI has the potential to finally bridge the gap, automating complex tasks, reducing friction for borrowers, and helping lenders regain profitability.
In this conversation, industry leaders Chris McLendon and Chris Olsen explore how AI can be the catalyst for real change. From streamlining underwriting to expanding accessibility with multilingual support, they discuss how the industry can harness AI responsibly, strategically, and effectively. As housing finance continues to evolve, the question isn't if AI will play a role—but how and who’s utilizing it.
In this conversation, industry leaders Chris McLendon and Chris Olsen explore how AI can be the catalyst for real change. From streamlining underwriting to expanding accessibility with multilingual support, they discuss how the industry can harness AI responsibly, strategically, and effectively. As housing finance continues to evolve, the question isn't if AI will play a role—but how and who’s utilizing it.
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NewsTranscript
00:00We are live from Las Vegas.
00:08I'm Diego Sanchez, President of HousingWire, and I'm joined by two Chrises from Tidalwave.
00:15And Tidalwave is an AI-first point-of-sale platform that launched in 2023.
00:22So Chris McClendon, so great to have you on the show.
00:28And you recently joined the company after over a decade at ICE.
00:34Tell me about why you wanted to make the move to more of a startup environment.
00:38Yeah.
00:39You know, I, today would be three weeks in the role of CRO here at Tidalwave.
00:44The last 10 years spent at ICE and kind of funny enough, the five years before that I
00:48spent at Black Knight.
00:50So really the last 15 years really working with a lot of the same folks.
00:54I had the opportunity to meet Diane several years ago and, you know, hear about what she
00:58was putting together and to see the, you know, the continued success that she's had with
01:02Tidalwave and the innovative approach to point-of-sale.
01:06We've actually kind of coined a term in the last couple of weeks called point-of-sale
01:09plus that I owe this Chris credit for.
01:12And really, you know, when we look at the market and it just seemed like a really good
01:16opportunity for what we're doing.
01:18And Chris Olson, you guys knew each other before Chris McClendon decided to join.
01:23Yeah.
01:24Chris brought me into the industry 25 years ago and we've worked together several times
01:30and he introduced me to Diane.
01:33You are founder.
01:35And when I saw what she was doing, I knew that I wanted to be a part of it.
01:39So it's really fun to be together.
01:40Tell me a little bit more about that.
01:42You've been with the company not too much longer, almost a year at this point.
01:48Tell me why you decided to join Tidalwave.
01:50When you look at the market, everybody was addressing the point-of-sale through just
01:55a form application and Tidalwave is AI first.
01:59And when everybody's looking at AI, they're kind of doing like maybe a chat GPT wrapper
02:04or just dabbling in AI, but we're an AI first platform.
02:08And that was really exciting to me as a technologist.
02:11Yeah.
02:12Let's dive in a little bit on that, on the AI first, because there's a lot of mortgage
02:16tech companies that talk about integrating AI, but it seems like you're very insistent
02:21that you are an AI first platform.
02:23What is the difference?
02:24What does that mean?
02:26The true difference and with the experience that we have, especially at the enterprise
02:29level, knowing how important the security, the traceability to what AI can do.
02:35I mean, everyone has a huge interest in it.
02:38I think we've seen that at the booth the last couple of days.
02:41But really the ability for, with us, the security side of it, and what makes us special
02:51is the contextualizer that we've developed.
02:53That's really our proprietary secret sauce.
02:56That gives the ability that keeps us hallucination-free, that really it has, like I said, the traceability,
03:03the security is there.
03:05Also the ability that all of our customers, their data is their data.
03:11So it doesn't go into our LLM never to be seen again.
03:14So there's all those things that really, that in today's environment with PII, that we've
03:20really, with Diane's expertise, we've really mastered that foundation that I think is going
03:25to lead us to success.
03:27And how do you see this AI first platform differentiating from the other point of sale
03:33platforms that are out there?
03:34Well, it's not just making decisions.
03:38It's communicating back to the borrower.
03:40So for example, if there is a letter of explanation needed, you know, it doesn't go to the processor
03:47to fill out, to then send to a borrower to go back.
03:50The AI interviews the borrower at the point where you have their attention, completes
03:56the letter of explanation, has them sign it, goes back into the platform.
03:59So something that can take two to three days now takes two to three minutes.
04:04And so potentially you're reducing steps in the process and freeing up the LO to work
04:11on more high value tasks.
04:13Yes, exactly.
04:14The LO can focus on sales and not just the tasks to keep the loan going.
04:20So it has been a difficult couple of years in mortgage origination and in housing overall.
04:28And there's been a bit of a focus on costs at a lot of your lender clients.
04:34How does Tidal Wave help a mortgage lender with a reduction in costs without reducing
04:42the quality of the product that they're offering to the end consumer?
04:45Yeah, that's to kind of go back to what Chris was saying with a form-based approach.
04:49So a lot of the folks that are in the point of sale space, you know, they may even have
04:53like a dynamic web form that, you know, someone answers a certain question.
04:56One way it triggers a request to ask for something.
05:00As Chris was saying with the AI and the approach that we're doing, the AI is intuitive enough
05:04to know as it's going through that process, if it sees, you know, say on a recent inquiry
05:10on the credit report, it knows to ask for that letter of explanation.
05:14And why that goes back to your question is instead of the borrower filling out the static
05:19application that then goes to processing and then processing asks the borrower to, you
05:24know, for this letter of explanation, you have a back and forth for a few days, we can
05:28get that up front.
05:29And that's just one example of several that we do.
05:32So we shorten that processing time.
05:34And I think it really goes back.
05:35So I've been in this industry for 25 years.
05:37The first, you know, after school, I was a retail LO for about eight years.
05:44And you know, knowing that really, if you can get to a one-touch underwrite, you know,
05:48right now in our industry, I know some folks are above this, but two to two and a half
05:52underwrites a day is about the industry average.
05:56And I feel like if we have higher quality files, so the technology can be really cool.
06:01But if we can go to our customers and say, we can take your underwriters from two to
06:04four to six, you know, that's really what we're guiding towards to answer your question
06:09about costs.
06:10If we reduce the time and we have greater output when the market returns, which it will,
06:15we won't have to go through that seasonal approach of then hiring a bunch of people
06:18to the industry because, you know, really we want people to feel safe in the industry.
06:24And you don't want to go through that boom and bust hire and fire cycle that, you know,
06:28we've all seen over the last few decades.
06:30So that to me is really the key is you can create a situation where lenders can make
06:38more money, do more origination without necessarily having to do the boom and bust of hiring.
06:44So what are you thinking about in 2025 as hopefully the market perks up a little bit
06:50in terms of the product roadmap?
06:52What other features are you going to be bringing to market this year?
06:55We just recently released the first of our many multilingual functions, and that's to
07:02address the Spanish market.
07:03It's a huge market segment.
07:06And so we've approached it holistically, where if the borrower applies in Spanish, then the
07:14emails that they're getting are in Spanish.
07:16Their text messages, their push notifications are all communicated in Spanish.
07:21If they have questions about their loan file, they can message Solo, the AI assistant, in
07:27Spanish, and it will reply in Spanish about their mortgage specific questions.
07:32And because of the flexibility of LLMs, we can take that into any language.
07:40Hispanic homebuyers are the fastest growing home buying segment, and it's been that way
07:46for a couple of years now.
07:47So that's tapping into an opportunity for your clients.
07:50It is.
07:51It's interesting.
07:52It's like the personal stories that kind of touch you.
07:54Last night, we're out mingling with everyone that's here, and a former coworker, she had
08:00came up to me and she had seen some of the posts on LinkedIn about the new opportunity
08:04and found it really exciting.
08:06Before I left, I had an opportunity to kind of tell her about what we're doing, and it
08:09was really the Spanish piece of it resonated with her.
08:12She was telling me there's nothing in the market for that.
08:15Her mother is primarily a Spanish speaking person, and having the ability to apply for
08:20a mortgage and have that home buying experience without having to bring someone in to help
08:24them with the translation, it just, it really emotionally touched her and it was like one
08:28of those moments.
08:29It's like, yes, this is a good thing.
08:31Reducing steps in the process, potentially reducing costs, but making a much more high
08:35quality experience.
08:38So let's talk about the future of mortgage.
08:41You're a former LO.
08:43What do you think needs to happen to infuse this AI first mentality into more of the mortgage
08:49process?
08:51There is so much opportunity.
08:53You know, when we look at the roadmap, we know, you know, to the point we're making
08:56earlier about the point of sell plus concept where, you know, we are AI first, we've got
09:00this dynamic way of taking applications.
09:03We see the just the multitude of ways that we can expand on our agent technology.
09:08So rather it's credit, it's income, it's asset, you know, ability to help with all of these
09:15manual tasks to make the process more efficient.
09:18I just, I see so much opportunity to change the perception of what it's like to, to get
09:24a mortgage in the United States today.
09:25Yep.
09:26I'd love your take on that question as well.
09:28Sure.
09:29When I think about it, I think about our AI agents and as Chris mentioned, call it a point
09:34of sale plus because it's not just taking the application.
09:38It's that full communication with the borrower and the AI to help all of the manufacturing
09:45process.
09:46So when you think about like roadmap, when you think about post-closing, you're looking
09:49at a document and data, that's a perfect use case for AI.
09:53And then having the point of sale brings us to not just another point solution because
09:57there are solutions that might be able to look at a document and data, but then we own
10:02the borrower experience.
10:03So if something is needed, the AI automatically communicates with the borrower, accepts the
10:08document, clears the condition.
10:11Gentlemen, what an interesting conversation this has been.
10:14Thank you so much for joining me today.
10:16Thank you, Diego.