Ramping up its investments in artificial intelligence, Intercontinental Exchange's mortgage technology division announced plans to roll out borrower-facing AI voice and chat agents on its servicing platform, intended to help business partners better assist homeowners. 

Leaders from the company unveiled the agents at its ICE Experience conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Currently in beta testing, the AI-backed servicing tools will employ agentic processes to offer solutions to questions and concerns raised by borrowers as well as execute certain loan management actions to the extent regulations permit. 

"These agents are purpose-built to make it easier for homeowners to manage their

mortgages, for servicing teams to manage fluctuating call volumes and for servicers to reduce

their cost per loan serviced — all while supporting compliance requirements," ICE Mortgage Technology President Bob Hart said in a press release.

The announcement comes as many leaders in the home finance ecosystem see AI innovation accelerating in ways that can be potentially transformative for the mortgage industry if adoption becomes widespread. 

"By embedding agentic, explainable AI directly into origination and servicing workflows, we're helping customers move from manual, repetitive tasks to exception-based operations while maintaining transparency, governance and trust," added ICE chief technology officer Mayur Kapani.

AI agents' scope of work

Backed by ICE Mortgage Technology's enterprise AI framework, Aurora, the agents will be able to handle several tasks, according to company executives.

• Integrated with ICE's servicing platform, the customer service voice agent will operate in a call-center support role. Based on borrower data readily available to it, the agent can operate at scale and personalize responses on topics, such as escrow, private mortgage insurance and servicing transfer details. It may also assist homeowners with payments and enrollment in autopay programs. When necessary, the agent will elevate the caller to a human representative.

• The AI digital chat agent can come embedded within a homeowner's online servicing portal. Along with the ability to explain escrow and payment structure, the agent will also be able to retrieve documents and assist with transactions or account setting changes. The chat agent also has the ability to offer customer refinance options based on the knowledge it has available. 

Alongside the new AI tools, ICE also announced the addition of 16 exception-based automation servicing agents from its business intelligence unit that will directly integrate with its mortgage servicing platform. Effective immediately, the agents can apply predefined business rules after the appearance of certain conditions, such as a federally designated natural disaster.  Since acquiring its servicing platform through a 2023 merger with Black Knight, ICE Mortgage Technology has made efforts to modernize the platform, including a new interface, which it introduced last month. It also developed new integrations with its legacy Encompass loan-origination system.

With its move into agentic AI agents, ICE Mortgage Technology joins a list of other home lending software providers finding uses for voice and chat tools across both originations and servicing. At the same time enthusiasm for AI grows, mortgage industry participants on the origination side already find themselves facing rising scrutiny and lawsuits over allegedly noncompliant AI-generated outbound marketing calls.