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*This article was reposted from HousingWire.com*

In this exclusive interview, Joe Welu, Founder & CEO of Total Expert, shares the company’s latest advances in AI. He focuses on lessons learned from their pilot program and explores how AI is delivering a measurable lift in operational efficiency and lead conversions across lending teams.

Beyond internal improvements, Joe reveals Total Experts’ focus on the borrower experience and how their technology is designed to supercharge loan officers, not replace them. Joe shares with Allison LaForgia his forward-looking perspective on the innovations expected in the near future that will continue to drive Total Expert’s leadership in mortgage technology.

“We anticipated… it would probably take maybe nine months to a year to be able to get to parity with a human… and we’re blown away. It happened within two weeks,” Welu said. The voice AI agent, designed to qualify leads through inbound and outbound calls, is now handling more than 2 million calls a month, with multiple lenders, in various stages of scaling.

Welu attributes the rapid progress to the unprecedented pace of innovation in AI. “It’s like nothing anyone’s ever seen before… there’s hundreds of billions, if not soon trillions, being invested in infrastructure and large language models… we get the opportunity to build on top of those capabilities and reimagine what we can do in our industry.”

The pilot program, he said, was rooted in an iterative approach with tight feedback loops. “As we learn… it gives us information, and we make adjustments… A key thing we’ve learned with AI projects… get really super clear about what it is in the business that you are improving. Give them that target… so it’s not this ambiguous sort of black box.”

The results have been measurable: “We are seeing, in some cases, 10 to 20% better conversions,” Welu said. AI’s consistency is a major factor. “It always remembers to call people back… never calls in sick… works weekends… It allows you to take your great people and… have them doing the most highly productive work possible.”

Borrower experience is also improving. “One of the pleasant surprises… is the quality of the experience to the end consumer,” he said. Whether or not lenders disclose that a caller is AI, “the quality of the interaction is so high, they continue down the path.” The AI agent maintains “the right tone… the ability to match… the tempo of the conversation” while instantly tapping into contextual customer data.

Welu emphasized that Total Expert’s AI is designed to “supercharge,” not replace, loan officers. “There are still moments where consumers want high quality advice… Our goal is to take a loan officer and put them in a position where they are spending… the majority of their time having the highest quality conversations… and abstracting away things that don’t add value.”

Looking ahead, Total Expert’s roadmap focuses on intentional, scalable AI. “We think about getting super clear on… use cases, and partnering with people that are going to be as obsessive as you are, about making it great,” Welu said. Over the next year, customers can expect new capabilities in customer intelligence, lead management, and additional AI-driven use cases. “Seeing it all come together is what gets me up and excited every day.”