Artificial intelligence is transforming far more than productivity—it is fundamentally changing how consumers discover and evaluate mortgage professionals. In this Hot Topic, David Lykken sits down with marketing expert John Seroka to discuss why AI has become the new gatekeeper between consumer intent and lender discovery. Together, they explore how brand clarity, message consistency, original content, and digital credibility are becoming the key drivers of visibility in an AI-powered world. Whether you’re a loan originator, branch manager, or mortgage executive, this conversation offers practical insights to help ensure your business is found, trusted, and recommended by the AI platforms that are rapidly reshaping the future of mortgage marketing.
[David] John, I just want to say it is so good to have you on camera with me and I want to say thank you for talking about this very important topic, AI. I want to get from your perspective as a marketer, a leading marketer. and folks, if you’re looking for someone to help you with your marketing campaigns, anything to do with advertising, anything about your messaging, this is the guy you need to be talking to. He does a great job. He and his firm, I’ve known his dad, as I said earlier in my intro, for years and decades, and they’ve been just a part of what I do forever. But John, AI is a part of the new world. I want to see how it is changing the competitive landscape of mortgage lending from your perspective.
[John] Well, first of all, Dave, thank you for that and thank you for having me on today. I couldn’t be more thrilled.
[David] No, it’s good. It’s well, it’s good to have you here, especially knowing that you’d have you’re such an expert on this topic. You’re an expert on all the topics, but you really have been watching and studying this AI movement.
[John] Well, you know what, Dave? This one has my passion because it’s like a tectonic shift. We haven’t seen anything like this for so many years. You know, the last time something this big happened, the internet went live in like 1994, right? or ninety three or ninety four, something like that and the people that decided not to get websites, think about where they are today. Same situation with this. You know, if you don’t participate in this, it’s just very dangerous to your business. Because Dave, here’s what’s changing right now. AI sits between intent and discovery. So mortgage
[David] AI sits between intent and discovery. I we gotta have you break that down a little bit, unpack that a little bit. It’s a brilliant statement, but I want to yield more insights. Maybe you’re going there, but I think I want to make sure we break that down so people thoroughly digest what you the wisdom in that statement.
[John] Yeah, absolutely. So essentially what that means, Dave, is that mortgage brands are no longer discovered by people. They’re discovered by AI platforms that are deciding whether or not they’re going to show present you. They’re deciding whether or not you’re qualified to be presented. And so therefore, if your brand is not recognized and understood by these platforms, then you’re invisible at the point of intent.
[David] Interesting. That it is very true. Why do you believe that mortgage leaders should be paying attention to the shift right now?
[John] Well, here’s the thing, Dave. you know, since AI is sitting between intent and discovery, when someone pops open these AI platforms and they start asking questions like, you know, who’s a top VA lender in my area? or I’m looking for a first-time home buyer specialist, or whatever the question might be about home financing. if they don’t show up associated with those answers. That’s invisible revenue loss and it’s not like you missed a lead. The lead never even showed up. And it’s not like you know, you’re missing demand. Demand is actually shifting over to those and to the brands that are recognized and can be discovered by the AI platforms. So demand didn’t decline, it just shifted over to your competitors.
[David] So how is that happening? I heard Tom Ferry talk about this at Sales Mastery this last year, and it was really an interesting fact and I understand blogs now are really important. We the SEO used to be the big thing. Now it’s GEO, is really the where things are at. I want to get your perspective on how do you get discovered? How does your content, a loan officer or a branch, a company, do that?
[John] So look, here’s the thing that AI platforms are deciding who gets discovered through a very specific framework. They’re looking for your brand clarity, they’re looking for message consistency, and they’re looking to understand whether or not your claim claims as a brand are verifiable. Okay, so the first thing they’re looking for is your brand message. They’re looking for clarity, consistency, and proof. They want to understand that exactly who you are, what your area of expertise is, and why you’re credible. So if it can understand that, then you’ve already hit first base. The second thing that it’s looking for is message consistency. So your message needs to be consistent across the internet. That means across your website, across LinkedIn, any directories where you can be found, any articles mentions or any content on the internet. So let’s say for example, that let’s take a really easy example. Let’s say that on your website, you know, you’re an individual loan officer, okay? and on your website you’re a mortgage loan originator and on your LinkedIn profile, you’re a mortgage broker. And in some other directory, you’re a you know, mortgage loan officer or whatever it is. So it you can see how AI is evaluating this and it is it it’s instantly confused. So it’s determining, well, if you can’t even get your title right, then how can I rely on you to provide an accurate and reliable answer? Because the sole purpose of the AI platform is to provide an accurate and reliable answer to whoever’s asking the questions.
[David] Yeah, good point. It’s important to understand that too, and the how to. This is I know something you guys specialize in. What factors would influence which mortgage companies gain the visibility, credibility in an AI driven environment?
[John] Well, the factors that really influence it are exactly what I just said, you know, the clarity, consistency of your brand message, and the provability of your claims. So the bottom line is this if AI cannot confidently understand who you are, what you do, and why you’re credible, then you’re invisible to it and the problem is that demand did not decrease. It’s just shifting over to your competitors that have a digital footprint that is understood and discoverable by the AI platforms.
[David] Yeah. The risk is if we don’t get this right, they’re basically not gonna be discovered and run the risk of having their business shrink dramatically and possibly go out of business. Is that an a fair assessment?
[John] Yeah, this is very much of a strategic concern, Dave, because you know, here’s the thing. the sole purpose of the platform is just to basically discover a reliable answer and if it can’t count on you to provide that answer, then you’re invisible at the point of intent. So if you don’t take the necessary steps, and this is where executives are making a big mistake right now, actually, because they are assuming that there is going to be some clear sign or signal or a drop in their pipeline or something that’s going to make them aware that there’s a shift, that there’s a problem. But it’s going to be insidious. It’s going to happen so slow, you aren’t going to see an instant drop or difference or anything and by the time you recognize that there’s a problem, your competitors already have the upper hand.
[David] When you’re looking, what are the strategies that you and Seroka associates are are putting forth as to how to create awareness so they don’t fall into that? Give us a come some insights to some of these.
[John] Sure. Well, you know, the key thing is that there’s a lot of companies out there right now that are just going crazy. They’re producing so much content and they think that there’s like this content war out there and they have to win the content war and the more content that they get published, the more discoverable that they’re going to be. And I really need to warn people against doing that because content fluff in this environment actively hurts you. And if you just have AI generated content that doesn’t have a human, an actual human involved in creating that content, then you know, look, Google and these AI platforms, they are definitely smart enough to recognize whether or not you’re at all involved in the content, whether or not there’s a human involved, or if it’s just content that that’s being pulled from different sections of the internet and being thrown together just to produce content for content’s sake. So you can really shoot yourself in the foot by not actually developing original content. It’s fine to have an AI platform help you with certain aspects of it, like for example, developing an outline or providing you with some ideas. But as soon as you allow the platform to take your job over and start producing that content, that’s where things can get really dangerous.
[David] Really interesting. Because a lot there is it’s so now so easy to have AI generate the content that you want to post in a blog or wherever that’s gonna get you the attention. But you’re saying, and this is a little bit different than what I anticipated, John, because I’ve heard folks like Tom Ferry said this have the bots write your program. No one’s gonna read it anyway, but the bots will find you and be able to read it and so you’re seeing now that the bots are getting sophisticated enough when they’re out there looking for content in this AI engine, they’re going to be recognizing what is created by AI and discounting.
[John] Exactly. It can absolut these bots can absolutely recognize what’s been AI influenced versus what has been completely created by AI.
[David] Interesting. When you’re looking at the market and this industry and you look three to five years out, what do you think this will separate the industry’s winners and from losers?
[John] Dave, you know what? the answer to that is surprisingly simple, but probably not what you’d expect. Here’s the thing the future brands who win are not just going to be the ones that know how to use AI. They’re gonna be the ones that know how to be discovered by AI platforms. So there’s a lot of talk in the industry right now, everywhere about you know productivity hacks and how to, you know, expert prompting techniques for AI. But I would say that the bigger risk and the bigger opportunity is actually can AI find you, understand you, and trust you well enough to present you. And you know, here’s here’s where it gets really dangerous, you know, going back to what I was saying before, because there’s not gonna be any pop-up or anything like that, or any warning sign indicating that you’re being skipped over. Instead, demand is quietly gonna shift. And again, that’s where the invisible revenue loss occurs. So the lenders that are really gonna win are going to be the ones, Dave, that whose brands are legible by machines. They know how they show up, they know how they’re described and they know whether or not their claims as a brand are provable or verifiable. And the opportunity right now is massive because never in the history of our industry could a small brand, a newer brand, one that has less experience and less volume, all right, outperform a much larger brand with a bigger footprint, much more volume, been around forever, just by getting this right. Just by getting this right.
[David] Interesting. That is so interesting because you think there’s the marketing departments out there of these bigger companies can give us give them such a significant advantage. And that’s what I’m learning about AI. No, this can be a great leveling play field. In fact, you can take out some of the giants out with the because you’re able to produce content that’s uniquely to yourself if you do it. When you’re creating content, would you agree that content out being out in the market is important? So long as you write it, is that what you’re saying? I want that number one.
[John] Yeah. well you have to have okay, so you have to have great content. You have to have content that, you know, you’re involved in writing, that’s not just, you know, flipped out by AI. So you have to be involved in writing it and getting that content out out there is absolutely important.
[David] Okay, so what about the consistency? So if let’s say you’re a VA lender and you’re focusing on VA Earls or VA refin new business, purchase business, but you’re really zeroing in on the VA lender, how would you then write just articles about the VA loan so it’s narrowly focused so that establishes, or does if you’re writing about a broad range of topics but yet you’re trying to be a VA specialist? does that distract you on your success and the the AI engine finding you?
[John] Dave, that’s a really good question. And I’ll let my tech guys handle that question. But as an overview, I think that the more content that you can put push out there that is written by you and that is structured, and this is the key. It’s gotta be content that is on topic and can be structured to be discovered by the platforms. So it’s not just a matter of simply publishing content for content’s sake. It’s a matter of ensuring that that content is actually legible to machines and that’s where a lot of people are missing the boat on this is because they think that they aren’t they aren’t understanding that there’s certain technical things that need to happen in the background to ensure that that content can actually be surfaced and discovered by the AI platforms.
[David] Interesting. What are some other keys and that people need to do to make sure that they’re being found? Anything else?
[John] Well, I would say that ensuring the fact that your brand and your message and everything is consistent across the internet. Look, the key thing that AI platform
[David] That’s where I tell you how you were gonna go because I found this to be so true.
[John] Yeah, the key thing that AI platforms are looking for, Dave, is clarity. It’s just simply clarity. If it can understand you and if it can find you and if it can trust you well enough to you know recommend you, that is what’s going to get you surfaced. So all and I’m talking about all kinds of kind I’m just not just talking about, you know, printed, you know content. I’m talking about video content. I’m talking about any kind of content that you can push out there. Also, it’s very important third party content as well. Like for example, articles, interviews. So any third party signals can will also influence how well you can be found.
[David] Do you whave to be in that article? Do you have to be the subject of that article or literally participating in that article? Or is it just big looking in looking out or out of the industry and bringing together the right kind of articles that best identify with your brand? Is that the better way to say it? Which of the two is correct?
[John] I think it’s a combination, Dave. It’s a combination of you being actually in the article and you being able to pull together articles that you know that mention your brand because again, those third party signals are gonna be key in in for AI to determine your level of trustworthiness.
[David] Really interesting. That’s well, it’s encouraging because I think there’s so many opportunities to differentiate yourself in the marketplace and where you can drive a lot of traffic. we’re seeing more and more evidence that the advantage is not necessarily the big guys, it’s someone who knows how to use this technology and be able to create content that reinforces their message and s you could get Be very successful in reaching loans or whatever you’re doing in the business when you’re setting this up. You guys specialize in this. You said this is your passion.
[John] This is really my passion, Dave. And that’s a really great question. Because this is like I was saying before, this is a first time in history where you can be a small startup brand and you can be competing head to head with a much larger brand and you can actually win. You have just as much opportunity as that larger brand to be presented. And all you have to do is really focus on this and get it right because so many companies that we’re speaking with right now in the marketplace. They are not as focused on this as they should be. And I think that what they’re doing, and this is a big mistake that they’re making, I think that they’re viewing this as still being optional. And it’s not optional because this discovery has already shifted. So if you’re not on board and if you don’t understand that, or look. All you have to do is look at how you yourself look up things on the internet, right? So do you go to Google or do you pop up at an AI platform and start asking questions? Look at your own activity. And that oven by itself should convince you the importance of this.
[David] Yeah. And it’s so fast, even though we have still go over to Google for some things, the vast majority of everything we’re researching now is through one of the LLMs, one of the large language model AI engines. And it is it’s so true. When someone works with you, how does that process start? And how what’s the journey for something like this?
[John] So the first thing we do is we assess people’s websites. So so basically we assess the website and there’s some tools that our team has that they use to assess your findability and they compare you against your direct competitors so that they can show you exactly, you know, in what areas you’re doing well and what areas you need improvement and then we put together a plan based upon that, to help them drive that forward.
[David] Interesting. When how can people get a hold of you, John? Well, they want to reach out to you and go, I gotta need to learn more from this guy.
[John ]LinkedIn John at Soroka dot com or go to our website.
[David] That’s good. John, thanks so much for taking time to be here with me today. Really grateful.
[John] Thank you so much, Dave. Really appreciate it.
[David] You bet. Thank you so much. All right.
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John Seroka is President of Seroka, a strategic marketing and public relations firm focused exclusively on the mortgage industry. Founded nearly 40 years ago, Seroka works with lenders and mortgage technology companies to strengthen their visibility, credibility, and market position. Today, John helps mortgage leaders understand how AI is reshaping brand discovery, trust, and competitive advantage, and what companies must do to remain visible and relevant in an AI-driven marketplace.