A UK debate is crossing the Atlantic but Canadian brokers say trust, not technology, will define the future
A Financial Times article last week turned plenty of heads in the UK mortgage industry, centred around a single question: Is AI set to bring about the end of the mortgage broker?
That piece examined how artificial intelligence is already delivering surprisingly precise mortgage guidance to UK consumers, and whether the nation’s thousands of brokering firms – many of them one-person operations – can survive what could be ahead if AI solutions continue to gather pace.
It’s a question that’s also generating plenty of debate this side of the Atlantic, even if few people really think brokers are an endangered species amid a looming AI threat.
The broker channel here appears to be in decent shape. According to Mortgage Professionals Canada’s (MPC) 2024 midyear report, brokers held a 33% market share – up four percentage points since the end of 2022 – and 45% of first-time homebuyers chose to work with a broker instead of directly with a bank.
Last year, MPC’s annual survey showed two-thirds of Canadians were likely to use a broker for their next mortgage, and 81% of previous broker users would do so again.
Still, that’s not to say AI won’t cause significant disruption within Canada’s housing and mortgage sectors. In the UK, the FT found that AI platforms are already offering consumers detailed mortgage advice – sensitivity models, rate comparisons, and other analysis – at a level that surprised even industry veterans.
Regulators, too, are keeping a close eye on evolutions in AI. In September 2025, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) published its final guidance E-23 on model risk management, imposing new requirements on how federally regulated financial institutions deploy AI, with those guidelines set to take effect next year.
A trust deficit with AI
The prospect of a brokerless Canada has drawn plenty of industry scepticism in recent years, especially because a home purchase usually represents one of the biggest financial decisions a buyer will ever make.
David Clarke (pictured top), a Nova Scotia-based broker with TMG The Mortgage Group, told Canadian Mortgage Professional the onset of online tax filing, for instance, hadn’t heralded the end for tax professionals, pointing out that while AI while absorb some of what brokers do, it won’t be linear and it won’t reach everything.
Part of the reason for that is a dynamic that Clarke said is apparent in his own practice: the spread of AI-generated content online, such as advice that can’t be verified and posts that can’t be attributed, is pushing some borrowers back toward human professionals rather than away from them.
“Every broker is saying the same thing. It’s more like relationship talk,” he said. “[The customers] want a relationship.”
The case for brokers
The ability to provide a human perspective based on real experience is an advantage to brokers that shouldn’t be taken lightly, according to Clarke.
In the US, a recent survey by banking giant TD showed that 78% of Americans now use AI-enabled tools in their daily lives but only 18% say they would trust it to make financial recommendations entirely on its own.
Clarke also recalled a recent encounter with a first-time homebuyer, who had some savings and manageable debt, as an example of how the value of human interaction and experience shone through.
“I was like, ‘Just so you know, statistically first-time homebuyers are way down, so good job,’” he said. “And they were like, ‘Thank you so much. Because we always feel like we have no money.’”
And the renewal wave now moving through the market is putting real financial pressure on borrowers, meaning many arrive at their broker’s door carrying a significant amount of stress.
For Clarke, who recently authored a new book on mortgage brokering titled Brokering Behaviour: People, Pressure, and the Chaos in Between, the complexity of the current market and eyewatering affordability hurdles facing many borrowers mean the value of a broker will remain undiminished.
He sees AI acting as a virtual assistant for brokers in menial tasks including document processing, affordability modelling, and rate comparison – but believes it will never replace brokers entirely.
“[Customers] have got so much on their plate and they just want somebody that they can trust,” he said. “They really want to talk on the phone – and know that you’re a person.”
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