The company hopes to reach more Hispanic borrowers with new AI update
United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) used its annual broker summit on Wednesday to unveil upgrades to Mia, its AI voice assistant, headlined by a Spanish-language version the company says will help brokers better reach clients who don't speak English as a first language.
The announcements came at UWM Live in Pontiac, Michigan, where the nation's largest wholesale lender typically saves its biggest product reveals. A year after first introducing Mia at the same event, UWM is now expanding what the tool can do and who it can reach.
Mat Ishbia, president and CEO of UWM, touted the success of its automated loan assistant, which has helped close more than 80,000 loans over the last 12 months.
“We have some enhancements to Mia that are coming out today,” Ishbia told Mortgage Professional America. “Mia’s been such a huge success. The enhancements are nice. She speaks Spanish now, which is great because you don’t have to set it that way. If someone speaks Spanish to her, she speaks Spanish back to you. So it’s a pretty cool setup.”
Mia Español and new outreach tools
The biggest update is Mia Español. Brokers can now have Mia take calls, schedule appointments, and field borrower questions entirely in Spanish. For brokers in markets with large Hispanic populations, that matters: consistent follow-up in a client's preferred language has historically required bilingual staff or gone undone.
“I think it’s really important because, obviously, staying in front of your past clients is important,” Ishbia said. “It’s hard for any LO, let alone a broker, to stay in front of their 100 past clients or 200 past clients when rates drop. Well, if Mia’s calling and it doesn’t speak a client’s language … and Spanish is the most popular language we were asked for.
“And Mia’s very smart. She’ll pick up other languages soon, too. But from a Spanish perspective, that’s going to make a big difference. Before, brokers couldn’t call these clients because they didn’t speak English. And so now Mia will be able to fix that. And that’s live today. So it’s cool.”
Mia On Demand, the expanded version of the assistant, also gives brokers three new types of outreach they can schedule and send.
The Listing Agent Relationship Builder was one Ishbia said was a big addition. It lets brokers put Mia to work on something that often falls through the cracks: keeping in touch with listing agents after a loan closes. The idea is to reinforce the broker's value before the agent's next deal, rather than starting from scratch each time.
“Brokers don’t do a great job of following up with the listing agent,” Ishbia said. “You get a referral from the buying agent, and they close the loan in 11 days. It’s all great. The listing agent who listed the house, we need to follow up with them and say, ‘Hey, by the way, on the Ishbia loan, we listed it. We closed the loan in nine days. Are there any other clients that you need to get closed fast?’”
AI continues to evolve
Mia is available to all UWM broker partners and was built by the company's in-house technology team. UWM has positioned its proprietary technology as a key reason brokers choose the wholesale channel over going retail, and the Mia updates fit that broader pitch.
Ishbia said that earning both the brokers’ trust and customers’ trust in Mia has been an evolving process.
“I think it’s an evolution, and every day that goes by, brokers have more and more trust and more and more understanding of it,” he said. “Also, brokers can communicate with the consumer. A lot of our brokers are now saying, ‘Hey, 20 days after closing, my assistant Mia is going to give you a call and just let you know when the first payment’s due. If you have questions, let her know.’
“We have so many brokers that it’s changed their business. One broker I just spoke to told me, ‘Mia’s my girl. She’s changed my life.’ I think trust also comes when they get calls in and a client has success. I have so many emails where brokers said, ‘I didn’t want Mia to call my client, and then all of a sudden she did, and I went to turn her off, but then I did a loan. Now I’ve got six loans and three referrals.’”
He said it is part of the growing AI trend in the mortgage industry.
“The world is changing,” Ishbia said. “I talked about AI last year, but a lot less than now. And guess what? Next year, it will be talked about 100 times more than it is today. It’s only evolving and growing.”
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