In this conversation with HousingWire’s Allison LaForgia, Total Expert CEO and Founder Joe Welu outlined how the company’s evolution to Customer IQ is reshaping the way lenders engage borrowers and drive growth.
We just announced Customer IQ as this next evolution of our platform,” Welu said. “Taking what we built with customer intelligence . . . and we’ve reimagined it for the AI revolution, what we call this agentic lending opportunity.”
At the core of that evolution is a system designed to unify and interpret data in real time. “Customer IQ aggregates all of the different data points and interprets what those data points mean . . . what’s going on in my customer’s life at this moment that I can connect with them on and provide value to them,” he explained.
To bring that concept into focus, Welu pointed to a common borrower scenario: “Maybe they had some medical issues, maybe they had some unnecessary expenses, but it’s clear from what’s happening on their credit report that they have a spiking, revolving debt. Customer IQ knows that you’ve got three, four hundred thousand in equity in your home.”
From there, that insight doesn’t sit idle. It becomes actionable through AI-driven engagement. “Customer IQ brings all that together, and then it puts it into our agentic layer, which ultimately is AI agents that can go out and have a conversation, send a text, a voice call, and then bring the loan officer into the loop.”
The result is a clear shift from traditional workflows. “If you think about a loan officer historically, they would be going through their database at random… 1777571666 the AI agent will bring them into the loop,” Welu said.
When it comes to measurable impact, Welu didn’t hesitate. “It’s hard to overstate how extraordinary some of the results that we’re seeing are,” he said. “We’ve seen people increase the applications… three to four times more loan applications than if they just use the humans.”
That scale is driven by a simple shift in capacity. “You’re limited on how many of those people you can talk to… now I can go out, talk to thousands and thousands of people… and put time on the calendar for that loan officer.”
In practice, that translates directly into day-to-day execution.“We had a top producer… they had 26 appointments over two days… with people that are ready to talk about how you can help them.”
But the opportunity extends beyond volume alone. Welu emphasized a broader strategic shift toward deeper customer relationships. “The most profitable way to grow their organization and build a sustainable lender in 2026 and beyond, is to go really deep with your customers, get loyalty…the limiting factor to doing that was ultimately, day-to-day human behavior,” he said.
AI changes that equation. “If you can just augment their skills… with the most brilliant, intelligent assistant you’ve ever imagined, it’s a recipe that opens up this new world of possibilities.”
Central to that “recipe” is context. “It’s that system of context that can aggregate everything… interpret it, prioritize it, and then ultimately feed that into my human loan officers and the AI agents,” Welu said.
That precision leads directly to better outcomes. “ You end up with a customer that feels like you deeply understand them,” he noted.
Compared to prior waves of AI, Welu sees this moment as fundamentally different. “Most of the AI was very incremental… this is helping you go deeper with customers and ultimately create loans and new revenue. The ROI is nearly immediate.”
Looking ahead, Total Expert is moving quickly to build on that momentum. “We’ve taken a more extreme and aggressive approach to innovating and moving quickly… it’s just what’s required to win in 2026,” he said.
What’s next includes new capabilities already in development. “We’re releasing… our next AI agent… a refi agent, which helps you go in and analyze your portfolio, create scenarios and just do some really cool things,” Welu shared.For Welu, the mission remains simple: “How do we partner and help our customers win at the very highest level, period, full stop.”
To learn more about Total Expert Customer IQ…
Related