AI Hope

Fobby Naghmi, senior vice president at AnnieMac and a longtime podcaster in his own right, remembers the exact moment ChatGPT changed how he saw the world. He described it as the moment Christopher Columbus told everyone the world wasn't flat anymore. 

Fobby has spent the years since using AI as a genuine day-to-day tool rather than a talking point, in an industry that runs on paperwork, disclosures, and timelines that punish anyone who falls behind. Fobby doesn't think AI replaces mortgage professionals, he thinks the mortgage professionals who use AI replace the ones who don't. 

He's watched that gap widen inside his own team over the past year and a half. It's the same adaptation story that's played out since someone first hitched a horse to a cart, except this time the stakes show up in loan timelines instead of miles walked.

Fobby's read on where AI goes next in mortgage is less about automation and more about foresight, using AI to catch the fires in a loan file before they start rather than scrambling to put them out, and building AI agents into recruiting and client outreach so his own time opens up for the parts of the job that actually require a person. He's also watching regulation land, TCPA rules already apply and Fannie Mae's AI governance framework takes effect August 6th.

His hope for the industry, and for anyone listening, is straightforward: stop treating AI like a verdict on your career and start treating it like a tool, because a car can take someone to the hospital or it can do damage, and the tool was never the deciding factor. The technology doesn't decide who wins. The willingness to adapt does.

Listen today on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts!

1:20 The ChatGPT moment that changed how Fobby saw everything 
3:01 Why AI adoption will separate mortgage pros who thrive from those who don't 
4:25 His "now or never" moment diving headfirst into AI 
5:09 Using AI to catch the fires in a loan file before they start 
6:24 What Fannie Mae's incoming AI governance means for mortgage 
8:03 Fobby's advice: stop fearing AI, it's a tool like any other 
8:26 Where to find Fobby Naghmi

What is AI Hope?

What's your AI success story? What made you realize you had to change? And what does a hopeful future with AI look like to you? AI Hope with Geoff Livingston asks three simple questions of people doing the hard work of adapting and thriving in the AI era.

[00:00:00] Geoff: Hey, everybody. It's Jeff Livingston, and welcome to AI Hope. I am here today with a crazy man, a wild man. His name is Fobby, Naghmi. He is not a crazy man. He's actually been around for a long time. He's a senior vice president over at AnnieMac, a long-term podcaster. I've been on his podcast. Fobby's seen it and done it, and he is also in the middle of helping people in some ways adopt AI and also to avoid it.

[00:00:27] So I thought, he'd be a great guy to have and share what's going on in the whole mortgage, perspective. So Fobby, welcome to the show. How are you, my man?

[00:00:35] Fobby: Thanks, man. I've, never been introduced as a crazy man before.

[00:00:39] Geoff: Ah, I just project my own problems onto other people. I should've

[00:00:42] Fobby: wore my long hair wig.

[00:00:44] Geoff: Well, you might not be wearing hair if you turn out like me, bro.

[00:00:47] so look, man, I know you've been doing this a long time, and you've been using some of the tools for a long time. So I'm sure you've seen the AI creep in. I wanted to know, has there been a moment for you where AI has really hit like a home run or been really, "Wow, this has made my life a lot better," or it's changed the way I think about something?

[00:01:07] Fobby: I think, Jeff, honestly, the first time I ever was introduced to, OpenAI, ChatGPT, the very first moment was I still remember the moment. this is one of those things, right? And I remember just telling my buddy John, "This is like Christopher Columbus telling the world is no longer flat."

[00:01:23] it was that, I knew it was just that much of a, of... life was never gonna be the same again.

[00:01:28] Geoff: Profound.

[00:01:30] Fobby: Yeah. it just was... 'Cause, whatever was just happening, and then, I dove w- a bunch of us in the mortgage side, we dove into it headfirst, and we're, like, just teaching each other prompts.

[00:01:39] there was no, nobody even knew what the word prompts meant. And all of a sudden you're like, "Hey, you can do an, an act as a mortgage underwriter." And, we were doing all the, and feeding it, our articles so it would sound like us. This was before, everybody was even talking about doing all that stuff.

[00:01:51] And so we were just, feeding it and, But I will tell you one thing that I... So in the mortgage side, it's definitely, it's here, right? It's, it's-

[00:01:58] Geoff: Right ...

[00:01:59] Fobby: whether people realize it now or we're using robotics now to disclose loan apps. there's all sorts of robotics going on, and with the use of AI, inside the mortgage industry.

[00:02:07] But the one thing that I think that people may not understand where AI is really the beneficial-

[00:02:14] Geoff: Yeah ...

[00:02:14] Fobby: is that it increases the capacity of a human being.

[00:02:18] Geoff: More relationship time.

[00:02:19] Fobby: Yeah. well, you have more time to do more, right?

[00:02:23] And focus on things you wanna focus on. And so it's not the repetitive m- "Okay, I gotta get this disclosure out.

[00:02:29] I gotta go do that." You know what I mean? remember like that guy, "Gotta go make donuts." Used to wake up in the morning, "Gotta go

[00:02:34] Geoff: make donuts." Gotta go make donuts. Gotta make the donuts, right? yeah, yeah. Old guy with a mustache, Yeah.

[00:02:37] Fobby: Yeah. So it takes that whole monotony out of the life.

[00:02:39] if you really begin to use AI the right way, your 24 hours increases your capacity to be way more useful in life.

[00:02:48] Geoff: Interesting. Very interesting. and with that in mind, do you see, ... Do you really see, a big improvement across your team? I know you manage a lot of folks, and you're, y- you've got quite a reach.

[00:02:59] So are you seeing people that are using it really well suddenly become much more productive? Or how does it impact them?

[00:03:05] Fobby: So the thing is we've, we, we've began to talk about this more and more, especially the last 18 months. Which is we're saying that, "Look, guys, mortgage professionals who use AI..."

[00:03:17] So AI is not gonna replace the mortgage professional or any other professional, I think, right? Yeah. But what it will do, the people who use AI will replace the ones who don't use AI. '

[00:03:26] Geoff: Cause you're seeing that much of a difference, right?

[00:03:28] Fobby: Yeah, and it's the big, it's the, it's ... it, I ... this goes back a long time, Jim.

[00:03:33] I think anytime there's technology, any kind of improvement, right? The people who adapt, they survive.

[00:03:39] And this is nothing more than that. This is an adaption.

[00:03:42] Geoff: It's like an accountant that doesn't use QuickBooks, right? It's like-

[00:03:47] Fobby: Yeah, or a guy- ... I go back 15,000 years ago. this is my favorite story that I thought of in my head one day.

[00:03:52] The kid who saw the first time a horse drawing, like, pulling a cart.

[00:03:57] Geoff: Ah.

[00:03:57] Fobby: And said, "Dad, we need one of those." I'm

[00:03:59] Geoff: over it. And the dad's

[00:04:02] Fobby: like, "No, no, we can carry just as much on our backs." "No, you can't."

[00:04:06] Geoff: No, you can't. No, you cannot.

[00:04:07] Fobby: You gotta adapt to technology. Yeah. That's all it is.

[00:04:11] Geoff: That's true.

[00:04:12] And it, and I think we have made it into something a lot more than it, it needs to be. So would you say when you first used, ChatGPT, that was like a now or gone moment for you, where it's like, "Okay, it's now or never. We just gotta go in on this"?

[00:04:24] Fobby: Yeah. there was no thinking about it.

[00:04:26] There was no, I've had second thoughts about all sorts of things. Even podcasts. I thought, I sat on the fence for podcasts for three or four years.

[00:04:33] Geoff: I remember.

[00:04:34] Fobby: And then finally was like, "Okay, let's do it," right?

[00:04:36] Geoff: Yeah.

[00:04:37] Fobby: there was none of that hesitation with AI. This was like, "Just dive in

[00:04:38] and see how the, how cold the water is." "No, don't worry about it."

[00:04:41] Geoff: Very cool. Very cool. So given where you are, and you're like a senior statesman now. We were making a joke about how old we've both gotten. Now you're becoming a senior statesman within your industry.

[00:04:52] what's your hope for this technology and what it does for the sector?

[00:04:56] Fobby: once again, I think we go back to capacity, right? I would love, love, love for more people to utilize AI so that increases our capacity to help consumers, right?

[00:05:04] Yeah. I think it also eliminates a lot of, we're...

[00:05:09] And I don't know how you've ever interacted with the mortgage industry, right? But there's a lot of fires that go on in one loan app and I, and I just wonder at what point can we really begin to use AI to foresee the fires, right? To put out the fires before they occur, right? To better timeline management.

[00:05:27] hey, you have a loan closing on July 17th, by this date you should be at this milestone. And let the AI really become your red flag monitor, right? as far as recruiting goes, because that's where I really specialize in, and, we created that CRM Simple a while ago, and it's got AI built into it now also.

[00:05:46] We've got AI generative a- agents built in that will make phone calls on behalf of Fobby and say, "Hey, Jeff, Fobby wanted to talk to you. Is it a good... When can Fobby talk to you?" kind of stuff.

[00:05:57] Geoff: Wow.

[00:05:57] Fobby: so we're experimenting with that. once again, it's, it's creating capa- Because like now while I'm talking to Jeff, I have my AI agent doing all this other stuff that I, I don't have to worry about right now.

[00:06:07] Geoff: are you guys seeing any kind of a blowback on that or are people just rolling with it? They're, i- it's working. So

[00:06:11] Fobby: I would... You have to follow TCPA rules. The, the, they apply to us, on, I think on August 6th, Fannie Mae AI governance will go into place.

[00:06:21] Geoff: Okay.

[00:06:21] Fobby: So that will literally regulate how we u- utilize AI, in the mortgage business.

[00:06:26] So that will include AI agents as well calling out. So you have to have permission. You have-- You can't just randomly text people, And like same thing that applies to a human being will apply to the AI agent.

[00:06:36] Geoff: Okay.

[00:06:36] Fobby: but yes, I... But I do think that, once again, I think you have the more time to be more creative, more strategy focused if you're not worrying about the mundane stuff that holds you down every single day.

[00:06:49] Geoff: which is really dealing with problems and helping people work through stuff, right?

[00:06:53] Fobby: even just even just I think the making the donuts is, like such a great analogy. Like just waking up like, "Oh, I gotta go make the donuts," like that attitude is, could be eliminated with the help of AI.

[00:07:03] Geoff: That's true.

[00:07:04] Fobby: Yeah.

[00:07:05] Geoff: I always thought donuts should be made by robots.

[00:07:07] Fobby: That'd be cool, right? if you st- still, it tastes the same.

[00:07:11] Geoff: I don't know. You've been to the cri- We both live in the same area. You've been to the Krispy Kreme on Route One. It pretty much is.

[00:07:16] Fobby: that's the whole point is people don't understand, like the robotics.

[00:07:19] they see like George Jetson, and no, robotics could be that conveyor belt taking it down to the fryer. You know what I mean?

[00:07:26] Geoff: 100%. Yeah.

[00:07:27] Fobby: Because they're guaranteed a certain size of the donut every single time, guaranteed to come out the same way.

[00:07:32] Geoff: Very cool. Yep. So- So let's get rid of that mundane, terrible work and get doing some fun.

[00:07:38] Down to doing some fun. Please, excuse me. Yeah. Very good.

[00:07:42] Fobby: Yeah.

[00:07:43] Geoff: Yeah. All right. Well, we... Y- you actually finished with a minute left. Is there anything else you would tell folks?

[00:07:50] Fobby: I just think people should stop being afraid of it, stop thinking the worst case. It's just like anything else. You can use a car to drive into a crowd or you can use a cra- a, a car to go pick up somebody, take them to the am- to the hospital.

[00:08:02] You know what I mean? A car can be used any which way, man. And, AI is no different. people's "Oh, no, this..." no, just calm down. People are gonna use it for good and people are gonna use it for bad. You just have to decide which side of the fence you're on.

[00:08:13] Geoff: There you go. Love it. How can people find you, Fobby?

[00:08:17] Fobby: I'm all over LinkedIn. if anybody wants to get a hold of me, just go on LinkedIn, Fobby. There's not a lot of Fobbys on LinkedIn.

[00:08:23] Geoff: Yeah.

[00:08:23] Fobby: And, they can normally find me. All right. Very cool. All right, brother. Yeah. We'll put all that stuff in your, episode and we'll get this out. So I really appreciate

[00:08:32] Geoff: you taking the time to be with me today.

[00:08:33] Thank

[00:08:33] Fobby: you. You got it, brother. Good seeing you, Jeff. Good

[00:08:35] Geoff: to see you, too.

[00:08:36] Fobby: Yeah, man.