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If you had told me when I started my mortgage career as a loan officer that I'd eventually be leading AI product development, I probably would have laughed. Then I would have asked if AI could help me close my loans faster.

My career has taken me from originating loans to secondary marketing, managing pricing engines, leading teams, and spending more hours troubleshooting technology than I'd like to admit. I've worked with enough spreadsheets, system limitations, and vendor enhancement requests to last several lifetimes.

So when I was approached about becoming PRMI's Director of AI Product Development, naturally, I jumped at the opportunity!

Just kidding. I turned it down.

I'm not a software developer. I'm not an expert coder. And let's be honest, moving from secondary marketing into AI product development wasn't exactly on my career bingo card.

But after giving it more thought, I started looking at the opportunity differently.

PRMI didn't ask me to take on this role because I know how to write code. They saw someone who understands the business, has a vision for what we can do better, and doesn't give up when something gets difficult. Some might call that determination. Others who have worked with me might have another word for it.

And I realized that's exactly what this opportunity is about. Bringing together business knowledge, technical expertise, a willingness to learn, and enough grit to keep going when things don't work the first time. Or the second. Or the tenth.

I'm grateful PRMI saw those qualities in me, even before I fully recognized how they could translate into this new role.

We're Not Just Talking About Innovation. We're Building It.

One of the things I'm most excited about is the direction PRMI is taking with technology.

We're actively using AI to help build solutions designed around our business, our teams, our branch partners, and ultimately our clients.

For years, we've relied on vendors for much of our technology. And while there are some great systems out there, I think we've all heard a few familiar phrases:

"The system doesn't support that."

"We'll need to submit an enhancement request."

And my personal favorite: "It's on the roadmap."

Which roadmap? Because at this point, I'm starting to think we're taking the scenic route.

By building and owning more of our technology, we're giving ourselves something incredibly valuable: flexibility.

We can build around the way we actually do business, prioritize enhancements that matter to our partners, and make improvements without always waiting for someone else's development schedule.

Don't get me wrong. We're not going to build everything ourselves, and there will always be a place for great vendor partnerships.

But having the ability to develop our own solutions changes the conversation from "Can the system do that?" to "How do we make that happen?"

And I love that.

AI Is Great. But Can It Fix My Spreadsheet?

What excites me most isn't AI itself. It's what we're doing with it.

We're using AI-assisted development to create tools and software that simplify processes, reduce repetitive work, and make information easier to access.

I've spent years finding creative workarounds to make technology fit our business. Now I get to help build technology that fits our business from the beginning, and that's pretty exciting.

Take our Margins Management app.

If you’ve managed a branch, you know the drill. You need to check or adjust your margins, so you send a request. Then you wait. Then you follow up. Then you wait some more.

The Margins app puts all of that in one place. Branch and division managers can view and update their own margins directly, and even spin up a pricing demo account on the fly. No ticket, no email chain, no waiting for someone to get to it. And because it’s integrated with our Optimal Blue pricing engine, changes go straight to the source.

We cut out the middle man. (Full disclosure: for a lot of years, I was the middle man.)

It’s not flashy. But it’s exactly the kind of thing that used to land in the “the system doesn’t support that” pile, and now it’s a tool built around how our managers actually work.

Of course, AI isn't magic. You can't just tell it to build the perfect system, sit back with a cup of coffee, and expect everything to work flawlessly.

Trust me, I've tried the coffee part.

There's still a lot of planning, testing, troubleshooting, and learning involved. And I'm learning something new every day.

But that's also what makes this opportunity so interesting.

We have people throughout PRMI who understand our business, know where the challenges are, and have great ideas about how to make things better.

When we combine that knowledge with technical expertise and AI-assisted development, we're able to approach those challenges in a completely different way.

And the goal isn't to replace people with technology. It's to give our people better tools so they can spend less time fighting systems and more time doing what they do best.

Sometimes the Best Opportunities Aren't the Ones You Planned

Looking back, I'm glad I reconsidered this opportunity.

It's pushed me outside my comfort zone, challenged me to learn new things, and reminded me that you don't have to know everything to take on something new.

You need a vision, the willingness to learn, and the determination to keep going when things get difficult.

And maybe just a little stubbornness.

I'm excited about what we're building at PRMI and the difference it can make for our teams, branch partners, and clients.

After spending years hearing, "We'll have to ask the vendor," there's something pretty satisfying about being part of a team that can say:

"Let's build it ourselves."

Now, if someone could just develop an AI tool that adds a few extra hours to the day, I'd really appreciate it.