AI Loan Officer: How Betsy™ is Reshaping the Mortgage Industry

NEW YORK, NY – February 25, 2026 – In a significant move that signals a new era for financial services, home finance company Better.com, in partnership with AI audio firm ElevenLabs, has successfully scaled an AI-powered loan agent named Betsy™. The agent now handles nearly 100,000 mortgage-related phone calls per month, automating a substantial portion of the lending process and delivering striking gains in efficiency and cost savings.

The collaboration showcases one of the most ambitious applications of conversational AI in the heavily regulated mortgage sector. According to a case study released by the companies, Betsy™ has automated 35.5% of borrower inquiries from end to end. In 2025 alone, the AI agent managed 1.89 million calls, saving Better’s human loan officers more than 1,666 hours of work each month. The results have been transformative for Better.com's bottom line, with the company reporting a 41% reduction in the average cost to originate a loan and a remarkable 100% increase in its lead-to-lock conversion rate in 2025.

The AI-Native Mortgage Revolution

At the heart of this transformation is a sophisticated technology stack. Betsy™ serves as the conversational front-end, powered by ElevenLabs Agents, which provides a consistent and natural-sounding voice. This voice interface is layered on top of Better.com's proprietary AI loan engine, Tinman®, which handles the complex backend calculations for pricing, eligibility, and approvals.

“We built Better to be AI-native from day one," said Vishal Garg, Founder and CEO of Better.com, in a statement. "By combining Tinman® with ElevenLabs’ technology, we’ve scaled the first voice-base AI loan agent built exclusively for the mortgage industry.”

The system's success lies in its modular design. Better.com initially experimented with a direct speech-to-speech model but pivoted to a more robust pipeline combining speech-to-text, a large language model for processing, and ElevenLabs' text-to-speech technology. This approach provides lower latency and greater control, which are critical when a single borrower conversation might trigger dozens of internal system calls to check rates or verify information. The operational efficiencies gained have been passed directly to consumers, enabling Better.com to offer more competitive borrower rates.

"AI-voice automation through Betsy™ has allowed us to move routine customer interactions out of manual workflows, helping us reduce the cost to originate while offering borrowers immediate and 24/7 support," Garg added.

Navigating a Red-Tape World

Deploying such a powerful AI in the mortgage industry is no small feat. The sector is governed by a complex web of federal and state regulations designed to protect consumers, ensure fairness, and maintain market stability. The rise of AI has prompted intense scrutiny from bodies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has warned lenders against using "black box" algorithms that obscure the reasons for credit decisions.

Better.com and ElevenLabs appear to have engineered their system with these compliance hurdles in mind. The architecture ensures that all critical determinations and regulated steps—such as credit pulls, user authentication, and rate locks—remain within Better's controlled systems and require explicit borrower consent. ElevenLabs Agents function strictly as a controlled voice interface, communicating the outputs from the Tinman® engine without making independent financial determinations. This separation is key to maintaining transparency and accountability.

This approach aligns with emerging best practices for AI in finance. With new rules governing Automated Valuation Models (AVMs) and persistent concerns over potential bias in lending algorithms, the ability to demonstrate clear, compliant, and explainable AI processes is paramount. The success of Betsy™ hinges not just on its voice quality but on its reliability and adherence to strict regulatory checkpoints.

“Supporting nearly 100,000 borrower interactions a month in a highly regulated space like mortgage requires more than a great voice model,” noted Lauren Rothwell, Head of Agents Growth at ElevenLabs. “It requires reliability, accuracy, and full compliance - and that’s exactly what ElevenAgents is built to deliver.”

The Human-AI Hybrid Workforce

The automation of 1,666 work hours per month inevitably raises questions about the future of human loan officers. However, the narrative presented by Better.com is one of workforce evolution, not replacement. By automating routine and repetitive tasks like eligibility checks and follow-up calls, Betsy™ frees up licensed human consultants to concentrate on higher-value advisory work.

This shift allows human experts to dedicate their time to helping borrowers navigate complex financial scenarios, building relationships, and providing the nuanced guidance and emotional intelligence that AI cannot yet replicate. This human-AI hybrid model is becoming a strategic goal across the service industry. Recent surveys indicate that businesses are far more likely to retrain staff to work alongside AI than to pursue outright workforce reductions.

In the mortgage industry, which faces a looming talent gap as experienced officers near retirement, AI can also serve as a crucial "co-pilot." It can guide new hires through conversations, provide real-time data, and help preserve institutional knowledge, thereby accelerating training and improving performance. Loan officers who learn to leverage these tools are likely to become more productive and competitive, focusing their expertise where it matters most.

A New Benchmark in a Competitive Landscape

Better.com's large-scale deployment sets a new benchmark in an industry rapidly embracing technology. The use of AI and machine learning in mortgage lending more than doubled in 2024, with 38% of lenders reporting adoption. The primary driver is the pursuit of operational efficiency, a goal that the Betsy™ case study demonstrates is well within reach.

While Better.com has established a strong lead with its AI-native approach, it is not alone. Competitors like Rocket Mortgage have also invested heavily in AI to streamline their digital-first services. The broader fintech ecosystem is filled with solutions using AI for everything from automated underwriting and fraud detection to predictive analytics for market trends.

The partnership also highlights the growing importance of specialized AI providers like ElevenLabs. While tech giants like Google and Amazon offer powerful text-to-speech services, the enterprise market demands specialized features for reliability, security, and low-latency performance in high-stakes environments. ElevenLabs, known for its lifelike and emotionally resonant voice synthesis, has carved out a key role by providing the compliant, enterprise-grade audio interface that makes systems like Betsy™ possible. This successful deployment in finance will likely serve as a powerful blueprint for other highly regulated industries looking to harness the power of agentic AI.