HousingWire AI Summit to address tech’s promise and pitfalls

As artificial intelligence (AI) transforms housing, mortgage lending and real estate sales, industry leaders will gather Tuesday in Dallas for HousingWire’s AI Summit to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by the emerging technology.

Summit speakers include Eric Forney, director of expansion at Keller Williams, and LaTasha Waddy, chief legal officer at NFM Lending, who will each bring distinct perspectives on how AI is reshaping their fields.

Speed isn’t everything

Forney’s talk is titled, “Efficiency Can’t Solve the Competency Problem,” and will push back against the industry’s fixation on speed and automation.

“The consumer never asked for more code and more automation,” Forney said. “What they want is competency and acumen. The problem plaguing the real estate industry, or the thing that consumers say they want the most, is not to have a more automated, streamlined, efficient process. They want better agents.”

Forney argues that while companies often tout AI’s time-saving capabilities, its real value lies in expanding agents’ knowledge and improving client service.

“Everyone calls it AI, and my pushback to everyone is that it cheapens the intelligence benefit of artificial intelligence,” he said. “Most of the quality of consumer experience gain comes from agents actually utilizing the cumulative intelligence that exists from artificial intelligence. And instead, what everyone’s trying to sell, and what everyone talks about, is all of the efficiency that gets added, the time that you can save.

“Time is not the problem that real estate agents have.”

He said the real gap is knowledge-based, and that technology is make it easier to cross.

“For the first time, you no longer have to be a 10-year, 20-year veteran to be an expert in housing and to be an expert in the process,” he said.

While some fear AI could displace agents, Forney calls such predictions overblown.

“There’s a graveyard full of hundreds of billions of dollars that have been wasted on trying to put real estate agents out of business,” he said. “That graveyard is littered with companies who thought that they could put a real estate agent out of business, and the only thing that they’ve done is drive real estate agents further into the hands of consumers.”

More agents are being hired today than ever before, he noted.

“The real estate agent, whether they use AI or not, is not going out of business. The consumer is still going to hire a real estate agent, because the job is not exclusively knowledge,” Forney said.

Dual perspective

Waddy, meanwhile, will address AI from the perspective of both a compliance leader and someone operating in an AI services business.

Her session, “Trust Fall,” will explore how companies can build confidence in AI tools while navigating evolving regulations.

“I have the benefit of not just working for a mortgage company that is using AI. I’m also working at a separate AI company that we have,” Waddy said. “I can see both sides of the adoption, which is a pretty unique spot to be in from an industry perspective.

“It’s not just how you deploy it. It’s how you get customers and other businesses to think about deploying it.”

Waddy plans to outline practical adoption strategies — including which teams to target first and how to approach vendor selection.

“At what levels do you get people to actually trust the AI, trust what you’re putting in, trust that what you’re getting out of it is accurate?” she said. “Getting people who aren’t as familiar with the technology in general to use it first and to trust it can be very difficult.

“On the company side, how do you get your AI approved? And what should executives or vendor management teams be thinking about when it comes to using the right AI platform?”

For some companies, Waddy suggests starting small.

“They might just want to start with some sort of closed AI that assists with communicating internally and drafting letters or reviewing contracts,” she said. “Whereas an organization that has been a high adopter of AI, they might want to use something a lot more sophisticated and start to explore some of these large language models or agentive AI.”

She also expects regulators to tighten AI oversight, especially in regard to consumer interactions and loan decision-making.

“I do think there’ll be a pivot where it will be more regulated,” Waddy said. “Where I see the bulk of the regulation starting is two things — interacting with the consumer and decision-making — so underwriting and decisioning a loan file.”

She pointed to AI tools with humanlike voices — such as those used by Better.com — as examples of systems that may face new disclosure rules.

“Even though there’s already Desktop Underwriter and (automated underwriting systems), with additional artificial intelligence around making loan decisions, I do think that regulators are talking about putting some guardrails around established AI solutions,” Waddy said.

Some states have proposed giving consumers the ability to opt out of AI-based loan decisioning altogether, she noted.

“As people are considering vendors, they should really consider that they have a real knowledgeable back office that is tracking and advising on these things as we’re deploying artificial intelligence in our organizations,” Waddy said.