Today, we announced a large partnership with Old Republic Title that builds on ten years of collaboration.

Old Republic Title has been one of Qualia’s closest partners since 2015 when John Voso, a fellow Clevelander, made a trip to our first San Francisco office (which was then located in the back of a lighting design studio). Unlike many at the time, John believed in us. He helped build an early relationship between Old Republic Title, an institution with over a 100-year history, and Qualia, which at that point was a fledgling startup without a functioning product. Over the years, we’ve worked closely together to deliver great software and services to our mutual customers. Ten years later, I’m proud of the partnership we’ve built.

Where is technology in our industry headed?

The introduction of the internet and computer both changed who the winners were in the title & escrow industry. Fidelity National Title, the largest title company, was built during this period, in part due to their focus as a leader in tech innovation. They were the first national title company to run on a unified, interconnected back office production system, allowing them to drive massive efficiencies in the 90s and early 2000s that helped them execute their roll up and build to the scale they are at today. With every inflection point in technology, there has been a change in the market structure and who can provide the best service for the best price. I believe we’re rapidly moving towards a new inflection point in our market that is of greater importance than the internet.

With the rapid rise in capability of AI systems, it’s safe to say that our jobs and the work we do will be unrecognizable inside the next five years. This is going to produce winners and losers as well. The number one winner will be the consumer. According to Zillow, 50% of home buyers cry during the process of buying a house. It’s an inherently stressful and emotional process, but as an industry we can and will do better. Deep automation will certainly improve consumer pricing, and it already helps real estate professionals spend more time delighting the customer and less time fighting with software.

In the title & escrow industry, future winners are going to be the ones who set themselves up to utilize the latest software and AI. For the first time in a generation, the tools available to do work are changing fundamentally. Step back and ask yourself, “What are the characteristics of an industry that should be automatable by artificial intelligence?” The answer likely includes work that is document intensive, communication intensive, legally complex, prone to error, and able to be checked with an expert in the loop. Does that sound familiar? There is a greater than 50% chance that we’ll have “self-driving title & escrow” in the next few years. At the very least, we’ll be a whole lot closer than we are today. At Qualia, we’re all in on making this happen and are excited to build alongside Old Republic.

What does this mean for Qualia?

Doubling Down on Agents

Qualia is the most agent-obsessed software platform on the market. With the acquisition of E-Closing and RamQuest, we’re welcoming many agents to Qualia and are committed, alongside Old Republic Title, to provide them an extremely high level of service, white glove onboarding and support, and significantly discounted pricing specifically designed in partnership between Qualia and Old Republic Title to ease the transition. 

Maturity of our Enterprise Offerings

Over the past several years, we’ve made a considerable investment in supporting the largest title & escrow companies in the country. Old Republic Title’s selection of Qualia is confirmation that these businesses are best run on our platform. We’re continuing to double down on supporting the largest title & escrow organizations.

Accelerating our Rate of Investment

Just as we have in the last decade, Qualia will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D over the next 10 years to push our customers to the cutting edge. The advantages of utilizing AI and the best software are starting to compound as modern platforms are more able to incorporate AI deeply within business workflows than legacy systems. As the capabilities of AI models increase, this differentiation becomes more and more relevant.

Although thousands of title & escrow agents and many title insurers use Qualia, Old Republic Title is the first of the big title insurers to switch their direct division to Qualia. We’re committed to delivering a massive technological advantage to them and to all our customers. As AI capabilities ramp, this advantage will become more and more pronounced. The best way to prepare for the coming AI transformation is to be on Qualia.

We’re thrilled to welcome Old Republic Title as our largest customer and to push the frontier of what is possible in our industry together.