The important conversation that just happened
Vikas Rao, CEO of Dark Matter, joined Mike Fratantoni, Chief Economist and SVP of Research at the Mortgage Bankers Association, for a webinar on where mortgage is heading. The full recording is below.
The macro picture, briefly
Mike opened with the MBA’s updated forecast. Mortgage rates holding in the 6 to 6.5 percent range through 2027. Home sales growing about 5 percent in 2026 compared to 2025. Originations in the $2.2 trillion range as a new normal, with purchase volume continuing to dominate. Home prices essentially flat at the national level, with significant variation by region.
The headline number for lenders: cost-to-originate at $11,109 per loan, and a widening productivity gap between the top quartile of lenders and the rest of the industry.
Where Vikas pushed the conversation
Vikas’s framing throughout the hour came back to a single idea. The lenders pulling away from the industry average are the ones reorganizing the process, not just the technology. AI and automation are vital, but only if the platform underneath is open enough to support them and the operating model is willing to evolve.
A few of the moments worth highlighting.
On AI inside the workflow:
“Lenders who are adopting AI to do the work, with people coming in and reviewing what AI did, are setting themselves up for success. That’s the shift, from doing to reviewing.”
On Dark Matter’s developer platform and Model Context Protocol (MCP):
“If you want to build your own AI agents that connect your accounting platform, your CRM, and your LOS, you can do that today on top of Empower. No six-month tech budget required. That’s what an AI-extensible platform looks like.”
On the future of the borrower experience:
“Every borrower is going to have their own AI agent assistant guiding them through the application. Every user inside the lender is going to have one too. That changes how lending happens.”
On customer experience as the anchor:
“If you originate the loan profitably but the customer experience was poor, that’s not a customer who recommends you to someone else. Start with the experience you want to offer, then reimagine the process.”
The bigger thesis
The throughline across the conversation is a question every lender should be asking in 2026. Not whether to invest in AI, but whether the platform underneath the operation is built for it. Open APIs. Machine-readable contracts. AI agents that can read the system and operate inside it. A workflow that runs in parallel instead of sequentially. A team elevated to judgment work instead of clearing tasks.
Lenders who answer that question correctly in the next 12 months will define what the next decade of mortgage looks like.
Watch the full conversation above.
Current Empower clients can reach out to your account manager for more details. If you want to talk through what any of this means for your operation, reach out to our sales team to schedule a chat.