Beeline rolls out an AI chatbot named Bob

If you have a question about the mortgage process or a specific product, Beeline Loans' AI chatbot, Bob, will likely know the answer.

The bot, launched in early July, was in development for over five months, according to Nick Liuzza, the CEO of Beeline. As conversations around ChatGPT and AI gained steam in the first half of the year, leadership at the digital mortgage lender believed having an AI-powered solution such as Bob would set it apart from the competition.

"In January we started thinking how we can [make our platform] better and realized that 60% of our applications come in after hours or weekends, so that means people are shopping for mortgages when everyone's sleeping or on the weekend," said Luizza. "We can't staff the front end of our business 24/7 and this generation [millennials and Gen Z], they want 24/7 so that's why we built Bob."

Bob is "not a single AI but an AI orchestration system that ties together several AI's, with each specifically trained to do one task very efficiently to create one natural, rich experience," Luizza added.

The bot has been taught to "speak the Beeline speak," to understand the difference between a conventional and non-conventional mortgage and can provide a quote to a borrower.

"It's fast, it's accurate, it can answer mortgage-related questions at Beeline speed, and it's only going to get better because AI gets better and better over time," the company's CEO noted.

But just like all well-mannered conversationalists, the bot has guardrails around what advice and insights it can share with borrowers. Specifically, the friendly chatbot will only answer non-licensed questions.

"Once the application is complete, he cannot provide a quote," Liuzza said. "He can only provide a quote with estimated data prior to a mortgage application being completed."

Beeline's development of Bob is part of an overall strategy to create a more streamlined process that younger generations, who are now entering their home-buying years and potentially looking for alternative mortgage products, will engage with.

"This younger generation who is our audience can't always apply for a conventional mortgage, they don't have the credit or the income," said Luizza. "Some of them are contracting their services or they are influencers, so not your typical employees. It was a blessing in disguise for us to build non-QM into our platform, so that we could increase our approvals with the next generation."

The company's CEO hinted that the release of the bot is the first step in a much larger AI road map and that Beeline will "continue to evolve and grow Bob and start to automate and use AI for more pieces going forward [specifically in the backend of our operations]." 

Despite the notoriously slow adoption of technology, the implementation of AI-related tech is spreading throughout the mortgage industry. Lenders are starting to use AI to identify opportunities with current customers, offer better products to borrowers and to target potential customers, a recent report found. 

Meanwhile, using AI for more nuanced tasks like underwriting has not had much traction in part because of the lack of clear regulations for it.