Ready or not, artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (gen AI) are emerging as transformative forces for the title & escrow industry. In an effort to better understand how the industry is responding to this innovative technology, Qualia conducted a nationwide survey of over 370 title & escrow professionals. Responses revealed that most title & escrow professionals (90%) are already using AI in their personal life or day-to-day work; however, despite this familiarity, many remain uncertain about the optimal use cases for AI in the real estate closing process. The prevailing question among title & escrow professionals is, “Does this technology truly matter for my business?”
To illustrate how AI can create better closings, we’ve curated this brief guide designed to provide title & escrow professionals with foundational knowledge about AI, its recent advancements, and its potential applications within title & escrow processes.
Unpacking the basics: AI terminology
To understand AI use cases, it’s helpful to first unpack the core terminology used to describe the technology. Below are key terms to know:
Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI is a computer system that applies advanced analysis and logic-based techniques to interpret events, support and automate decisions, provide recommendations, and take actions. AI is already embedded into most people’s day-to-day lives. For example, AI powers voice-recognition technologies like Google Home or Amazon’s Alexa. AI also enables users to unlock their smartphones with facial recognition or instantly see and correct mistakes with spell check functionalities.
Generative AI (Gen AI): Gen AI refers to deep-learning models that can generate unique text, images, audio, and other content based on the data they were trained on.
Natural Language Processing (NLP): NLP technology involves the ability to turn text or audio speech into encoded, structured information.
Large Language Models (LLM): An LLM is a specialized type of AI that has been trained on vast amounts of text to understand existing content and generate original content. OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 is an example of an LLM.
Why recent advancements in AI are making the technology more relevant than ever
In late 2022, the field of artificial intelligence witnessed a breakthrough milestone with the introduction of ChatGPT, a gen AI chatbot. This tool enabled users to input prompts and receive a detailed response in return. The media and the public were instantly enthralled by the potential of this technology and marveled at how effortlessly it could generate relevant, multi-paragraph responses within seconds.
While gen AI wasn’t a new concept, groundbreaking advancements in LLMs made the technology more accessible and secure. This breakthrough led to the widespread adoption of gen AI products in 2023, backed by substantial investments totaling billions of dollars.
For title & escrow companies, the influx of gen AI tools hitting the market represents a significant opportunity, particularly in streamlining the time-consuming and repetitive tasks typically associated with real estate closings.
Gen AI use cases in the title & escrow industry
With the introduction of any new technology, it’s tempting to experiment; however, in the case of gen AI, it’s important to consider the technology’s current limitations and the associated risks of using the technology for inappropriate use cases. For example, due to gen AI’s potential to hallucinate or create inaccurate or biased content, title & escrow companies should avoid using it in instances where detail, accuracy, and consequences matter most. Below are a few examples of how gen AI can empower professionals in the title industry:
Automating tedious tasks and rekeying
Gen AI can streamline the extraction of unstructured data from documents like purchase and sales contracts and convert it into structured data for automatic insertion into order fields.
Providing timely responses to client questions
Gen AI can recognize file contents and draft accurate, personalized responses to client queries. These drafts can then be tweaked and tailored to sound more like the representative or brand.
Increasing workflow efficiency
Gen AI can interpret communications (emails or messages) from transaction parties and utilize it to assign the next relevant task in a workflow.
Insightful reporting
Gen AI can ingest information from performance reports or documents and provide high-level summaries with insights on areas for opportunity.
A starting point for in-depth research
Gen AI can respond to user queries with insights that surpass typical search engine results. These insights can then be a starting point for deeper research.
Combatting blank page syndrome
Gen AI can create initial drafts of emails, memos, business briefs, or marketing content for subsequent editing to align with brand style and tone.
As AI evolves, new use cases will inevitably emerge. It’s therefore imperative that title & escrow operators think ahead when designing their AI infrastructure to ensure new functionality can be implemented or added with limited disruption, so they don’t fall behind the competition or distract their workforce.
Getting started with AI
The title & escrow industry stands on the brink of a promising AI-enabled future. Qualia’s survey data proves that title & escrow professionals are ready to embrace the technology now.
At Qualia, we believe that gen AI implementations are most impactful when they are embedded directly into operational software, rather than added as standalone solutions. While many powerful standalone AI tools exist, building and maintaining integrations is expensive and creates disjointed workflows.
When AI functionality is embedded natively into existing operational software, teams benefit from less disruption, greater ease of use, and quicker deployments of new AI functionalities. Embedded AI also has the advantage of order context— when AI is directly embedded into a system, it can more easily read and process data within the context of an order to generate better outputs.
Qualia is a trusted AI partner for the title & escrow industry. Our purpose-built gen AI solutions are embedded directly into Qualia’s title production system to ensure that businesses get immediate, transformative value from AI in their day-to-day workflows.
To learn more about Qualia’s gen AI and AI solutions, schedule a time with a Qualia product specialist.
