Real Estate/News
Mortgage lenders name regulatory uncertainty as the top barrier to scaling AI
A regulator-industry survey of 31 US lenders and servicers: AI is in production almost everywhere, but only about a quarter have scaled a single use.
By Daily Aletheia · Checked against the primary source · 29 September 2026 · 2 min read
The American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators, the Mortgage Bankers Association and Boston Consulting Group released The State of AI Among Mortgage Lenders and Servicers on 28 September. It is the first time state regulators and the industry have asked the same AI questions together.
What the report says
The survey ran online from April to July 2026 with 31 respondents, which the groups say account for about 40% of annual US mortgage origination volume. It assessed 38 AI use cases across marketing and sales, origination, secondary markets, servicing and corporate functions.
The report puts roughly 95% of respondents at one or more use cases in production, about 10 of the 38 on average, but only about 25% have fully scaled even one.
The most common use is productivity tools for writing and summarising, in production at 87% of respondents. The groups say AI has not yet produced measurable gains in cost to originate, customer experience or risk.
The barriers
Asked what stops them scaling, 59% named regulatory and compliance concerns and 45% said the return on AI tools is still unclear. No other barrier reached 25%; data quality and a lack of available solutions tied at 24% (that question had 29 answers).
Governance is thinner after launch. Written AI policies were reported by 87%, but ongoing monitoring for drift and accuracy by 58% and regular board reporting by 45%. More than one in four said staff use AI outside approved tools: 20% occasionally and 7% frequently.
The findings go to MBA's Annual Convention in Chicago on 11 to 14 October.