HousingWire: AI in action: How Tidalwave and NEXA are equipping LO’s with the right tools

Diane Yu, CEO and co-founder of Tidalwave, and Mike Kortas, CEO of NEXA Mortgage, join Allison LaForgia for an exclusive conversation to explore the newly announced partnership between Tidalwave and NEXA Mortgage. Tidalwave’s technology, which pushes past the industry hype to deliver meaningful change and innovation, will now be available to NEXA’s loan officers, advancing Tidalwave’s mission to transform mortgage lending.

‘Mike discusses the strategic timing behind adopting AI and how NEXA plans to increase loan officer productivity while preserving the personal touch that borrowers value. The conversation also covers the promise to improve loan officer effectiveness and borrower trust as the industry looks toward 2026. 

“The partnership and the customer… they just come in so naturally together,” Yu said. “We want to engage with our customers, help them perfect the file, and help everything downstream.” Initially unsure if Tidalwave had the right product for a broker network, Yu recalled, “They were saying, ‘No, no, no… we watched your demo… if we just work together… we’re gonna create history for the brokerage industry.’”

Kortas said the search for the right AI partner was deliberate. “We saw some things out there… this is going to change everything, and if you don’t get involved in it now, you will suffer being extinct tomorrow,” he said. What stood out to him was Tidalwave’s willingness to adapt its technology to a fragmented broker environment. “You can tell… the methodicalness in how she thinks… she never just blew us off. She wanted to hear things out.”

From the beginning, Yu explained, Tidalwave aimed to build more than “an AI chat bot.” “We want to create a fully integrated system to truly help our customer… not just give you a whole bunch of work to do, but actually do the work for you.” This meant years of integration with credit, asset, and underwriting systems. The result: NEXA could launch in just two weeks.

Operationalizing the rollout across NEXA’s vast network won’t be difficult, Kortas said. “We grew NEXA Mortgage to the largest mortgage broker in U.S. history in four years… Our loan officers are extremely excited. They understand the future of it.” The plan starts with NEXA’s support team training and assisting LOs before scaling company-wide.

Kortas believes AI will enhance, not replace, the human side of lending. “It’s going to put the loan officers into what they enjoy the most, socializing.”

LOs are especially excited about the borrower-facing benefits. “For a borrower to talk to their own loan and work with the loan itself to provide a solution… that’s an enormous difference.”

Looking ahead, Yu sees the potential to “help all the borrowers get to the pre-approval mortgage application on the point of interaction, in real time.” Kortas believes the partnership could “really change the entire TPO sector” and is eager to see where they are by the end of 2026.

https://www.housingwire.com/videos/ai-in-action-how-tidalwave-and-nexa-are-equipping-los-with-the-right-tools/