AI tools work best when neither your employees nor your customers know they're using AI at all.
In a nutshell, this sums up what our title agency has learned as we've embraced AI-powered solutions to help streamline processes and gain business advantages. The more successful our AI initiative has become, the less noticeable it is to the people it benefits both inside and outside our company.
That might sound a bit ironic, so allow us to explain by discussing how we're using AI, which unexpected results it has yielded and how we've gained acceptance and buy-in for our AI-centric strategy.
Integrating AI into title agency operations
Our title agency,
Lighthouse Title Group, operates dozens of locations across Michigan and Wisconsin, where we assist with both residential and commercial real estate transactions.
In most ways, our processes are pretty standard for those of a title company of our type and size. Our focus is on collecting and processing information in a way that helps our customers get to the closing table quickly and efficiently.
However, we stand out from the crowd because we were early adopters of AI, which we began implementing into our operations about two years ago. At a time when next-generation AI technology like ChatGPT was just coming onto many companies' radars, we were already putting it to use.
At the heart of our AI investment are two software products. First is a chatbot called Louie the Lightkeeper, which is based on a virtual closing assistant developed by
Alanna. His main job is to provide a 24/7 service where customers ask questions about the overall title process or the status of their title requests.
Second, we've integrated AI into our internal procure-to-pay processes to make them more accurate and efficient, centered around accounts payable automation software from
Stampli.
The unexpected benefits of AI
Perhaps the most obvious benefit that my company has reaped from AI is cost savings. Louie the Lightkeeper costs us much less to operate than we'd spend if we had to pay a team of agents to be available to our customers 24/7, while Stampli helps us reduce the staff resources we need to devote to invoice processing. In addition, both tools help ensure that our business can keep growing. As we add more clients, Louie will always be ready to tackle the increase in case load, while Stampli allows us to scale invoice processing, without having to increase staff size at the same rate.
However, what we've learned over the past two years is that cost savings and scalability are just the start when it comes to the benefits that AI can bring to title company operations. Another key advantage of rolling out tools like Louie is that they've helped us reach more customers. Many people – particularly those in younger demographics – don't know a lot about what title companies do or what the process is, which means that being able to field their questions whenever they arise is critical for attracting them as customers. However, the idea of having to call an agent to ask those questions feels foreign to younger clients. They just want to text or chat on their cell phones – which is exactly what Louie allows them to do.
Along similar lines, AI has helped with customer acquisition by delivering a smooth, positive experience. This has been especially advantageous to us during the recent slowdown in the housing market, which has led to fewer opportunities and more competition for clients. AI gives us an edge over competitors, who can't deliver the frictionless, 24/7 digital customer experience that we provide.
AI has given us an edge in employee retention, too. Although some employees initially worried that AI tools could become a threat to their jobs, they've since come to appreciate the internal AI tools we deploy as a way to save time, reduce tedium and even open up new career opportunities inside the company. For instance, with Stampli, our accounts payable automation software, we were able to shift administrative assistants who had little accounting experience into roles where they are now processing invoices.
These employees have gained the ability to work within a domain that opens the door to a broader set of career opportunities than they would have had in admin roles. At the same time, we were able to meet our accounts payable needs without having to hire new staff.
Finally, from a business growth perspective, AI has also proven to be a boon because it has helped us acquire other companies that lack the sophisticated tools and process efficiency we've implemented. We've doubled our number of offices over the past two years thanks in no small part to the differentiation we've gained through internal-facing AI tools like Stampli, which have allowed us to merge less efficient organizations into our business, improve their process efficiency and create new value with them.
The best AI doesn't feel like AI
Perhaps the ultimate takeaway from my organization's experience with AI is that the better your business becomes at integrating AI into its processes, the less your employees and customers will notice that you're using AI.
When AI tools are clunky, standalone solutions that only deliver the right answer perhaps 60 or 70 percent of the time, it's easy for employees to hate them and customers not to trust them. But when you implement AI tools that connect seamlessly to your existing processes, and that offer personalized, highly accurate results, your internal and external stakeholders stop seeing AI as a potentially scary new type of technology. Instead, they view it as a routine part of operations.
To reach this point in your AI strategy, you need to think carefully not just about which types of AI tools to use, but also how you use them. We selected products like Alanna and Stampli as the basis for our AI strategy because we can trust them to deliver the right answers. They also provide extensive customization opportunities that allow us to optimize the tools for our processes and brand.
In addition, the ability of AI solutions to improve automatically over time makes them even more valuable. For instance, Stampli automatically learns the nuances of our invoice approval processes. This frees our AP personnel from having to manage tedious aspects of the processes themselves, allowing them instead to focus on the human side of invoice processing – making personal connections with approvers to understand the business purpose behind each expense. AP is a conversation at its heart, and Stampli helps bring humans to the center of the operation, while outsourcing mundane tasks that humans hate to AI.
Conclusion: Getting more from AI
For now, AI remains a nice-to-have differentiator that helps companies like mine achieve new levels of efficiency, cost savings, customer satisfaction and employee retention. Going forward, however, AI is likely to become a basic essential that title companies of all types will need to keep their operations lean and reliable. If you want to remain relevant, now is the time to begin charting a strategy for integrating AI technology into your business so seamlessly that your customers and employees barely know you're doing it.
Jennifer Thomas is Financial Controller at Lighthouse Title Group. Seth DeWitt is Accounting Officer and Alex Wuerfel is Business Operations Director