Podcast: Planning For Growth And Decreases In Demand With Technology

The general manager of mortgage at Ocrolus says lenders who are planning long-term for the cyclical nature of the industry want technology to help their teams absorb both growth and decreases in demand.

“I think the lenders that are able to build the infrastructure that absorbs those changes effectively are able to give a better borrower experience. I think they’re the ones who are going to be able to take full advantage of the downturn in rates that I know is coming and have a great outcome both for them as an organization, but also for their customers,” Nadia Aziz said.

Ocrolus is an AI-driven workflow and analytics platform for lenders. The company transforms financial documents and digital data into regulatory-grade decision intelligence.

“Our goal is to help lenders scale more efficiently, lower costs, reduce risk, and enhance the overall borrower experience. We sit at the center of one of the most complex parts of the lending process, and that is taking borrower documents and converting them into decision-grade data that can then be used throughout the process,” Aziz said.

The platform analyzes about 750,000 credit applications a month. It is trusted by over 400 customers and was named a finalist for Best AI Solution during the 2026 Banking Tech Awards.

Aziz recently sat down with The Mortgage Note’s Editor Kimberley Haas to talk about how lenders can adapt to demand changes with technology. 

Aziz said traditionally, mortgage lenders hired staff members when there was growth, and then let them go when demand dropped. She said that has to change.

“That isn’t a quick way of solving the issue. It’s not a cheap way of solving the issue. It certainly is disruptive from a morale and a culture perspective, so I think lenders are recognizing more and more that you have to find a way to solve for that through technology, and that’s kind of how I think about the tools and the platform that we are building. It’s really, to me, like a shock absorber,” Aziz said.

That means when volume fluctuates, lenders aren’t suddenly scrambling to hire and train staff members, just to let them go when demand drops.

At the same time, artificial intelligence is not meant to replace the human judgment that loan officers have.

“It’s meant to allow them to actually be more productive and spend their time on the things that actually require that human judgment, but again, you’re using technology to surface those things for them, so that they know where they should be spending their time, and not instead having to look at stuff that was pretty straightforward, pretty plain vanilla, and can be handled by leveraging AI and automation,” Aziz said.

On the consumer side, Aziz said the demand for automation and the use of artificial intelligence is there, and lenders can help consumers by making the borrowing process more like everyday life. People want to be able to upload their documents and have access to the kind of technology where the necessary application fields are prepopulated, similar to an online job application.

They also look forward to a future where they are told instantaneously if the documentation they provided to secure a loan is correct.

“I think any survey that you look at from borrowers and what is their biggest pain point in mortgage originations processes, it is, ‘I’m asked for the same document again and again,’ right?” Aziz said. “And so I think that is very important for us to think about.”

Ocrolus was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in the Financial District in New York City.

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