In this episode of Lykken on Lending – Hot Topics, David Lykken sits down with Josh Lehr, Founder of Lehrjet, to cut through the noise surrounding AI and mortgage technology. With more than two decades of experience spanning Zillow, Total Expert, and fintech partnerships, Josh offers an independent, practitioner’s perspective on what actually works. The conversation explores AI voice assistants, agentic AI, backend automation, data strategy, and why the future isn’t about replacing loan officers—but empowering them. This is a must-listen for mortgage leaders trying to separate hype from impact and make smarter technology decisions in 2026 and beyond.
[David] Listeners, there’s so much confusion out there as what technology should we use, where should we go?wWho can we talk to that understands it, who’s independent? it seems like there’s a lot of salesmen, but not always a lot of independent folks that really have played in the space to the degree as our guest is today. And I’m talking about Josh Lear of Lehrjet. This is a new company, not the Learjet. It is Lehrjet because his last name is spelled LEHR, playing words. I’m thrilled to have Josh, who I’ve had on the podcast before, back when he was at Total Expert. And now we have him on again today. We ran into each other at the Total Expert event in Denver here a few months back, and I’m excited to have him on the podcast. Josh, good to have you here friend.
[Josh] Yeah, thanks David. I’m glad to be here, it’s been a while. For sure. Glad to be…
[David] It’s way too long.
[Josh] Yeah, it’s been a little too, Hey, you know, new business. I’m ready to go. Well, it’s good. I can’t wait to hear about it. You have over 23 years of experience with financial services. You’ve helped so many lenders guide the, you guide them through the various financial products. You’re with More Tech, which is a Zillow company. You’ve played a pivotal role in so many companies. So I’m really excited to get your perspective because so many people are trying to figure out what should we be doing. But let’s start by telling us about the new company and what you’re doing, some of the changes you’ve gone through.
[Josh] Yeah, it’s been a ton of fun, it’s been almost a year in the, a year in the making now, you know, I mean we, we’ve talked about it, you know, when I was at Total expert working on partnerships, working on M&A coverage for Joe and the team over there, going back to my Zillow days, right? That’s what I did at Zillows. I did a lot of partnerships that m and a coverage, right? All the deals that came in. You talk about the mortgage lender that was acquired, the consumer direct lender over there. And I saw these great companies that had good technology or they had a great mission and they were just missing the pieces. And you know, in that, in that role, it’s more about the businesses that I’m working with than it is those businesses. Like, gosh, if they made these little tweaks, they could really take themselves to the next level. Maybe it’s an, integration, right? Maybe it’s the messaging that they have with the market. Maybe it’s just not understanding exactly what the customer’s looking for. That’s where I’m excited to be out on my own now so I can actually go work with these customers or work, work with these smaller technology firms and really take them to the next level, you know, we talk about the name too. I’ve gotten, you know, a lot of fun feedback on the name itself. Uh, like you said, it’s spelled LEHRjet. One of the things that a lot of people don’t know is my middle name is actually Jet as well, so. So, you know
[David] That’s right. I remember you tell me about that. That’s why I forgotten that. So it fits 100% with, uh, your, uh, your, your name. So that’s pretty good that your parents had a sense of humor so that’s good. Love it. Well, that’s good. Let’s talk about some of the new interesting technology, the industry. What are you seeing that’s there? there’s a lot of old stuff out there, Josh, and there’s so many that are trying to figure out to what extent should we use ai? Where should we go? Walk us through it. Give us your perspective.
[Josh] Yeah, for sure, yeah, I think, you know, we talk about AI and when we talk about AI and mortgage, it gravitates to the underwriting use case, right? Where a lot of people are using it for documents, understanding how can we apply this to, you know, income, assets, making sure we’re extracting from documents. And that’s been the big use case so far. One of the ones I’ve seen that’s really popped up more recently, and there’s been a lot of talk about this fall and into this spring and into the winter here is the AI voice assistance right? And I think that’s one thing that’s been huge. And I think the clarity of clarification here is not AI loan officer, but it’s AI sales assistance. And I’ve seen probably about, you know, 25 of these, let’s call it. And what they’re doing is they’re helping take those tasks on that loan officers traditionally don’t like to take, so we talk about in the consumer direct world, like, you know, we’ve talked about, you know, Lending Tree leads, Zillow leads, well, you get these lenders loan officers that want to take these leads and they’re calling on these leads and they have one bad experience and it changes their mindset, right? in terms of how they want to act with these leads. Well, what happens with these AI voice assistants is they really don’t have a memory and they don’t have feelings, right? So their feelings don’t get hurt. So if someone has one bad experience with, they’ll lead. And they tend to treat that lead source a little bit differently. What these AI voice assistants are able to do is start making these phone calls to interact with consumers. So whether that’s a new lead or maybe that’s an aged lead that you just found out through, you know, they pulled their credit or maybe they have a certain amount of equity. These AI call assistant are able to have these lengthy conversations with consumers and really understand if those consumers are ready to transact, which is really cool, right? that’s the work that many officers don’t really, you know, necessarily wanna engage with. They want that customer that’s ready to transact. So it’s actually really helping them get to that customer that wants to transact. So I think that’s been a really exciting use case on the AI.
[David] Yeah. The AI assistant or the voice assistant is something that really has caught my attention. You look at what it can do for the heavy lifting, it takes out the motion. They just stay consistently. The part that amazes me the most, Total Expert has rolled this out as well, and it’s very, I mean, it’s having a real big impact for those that are embracing and using it. I wanna talk about the extensive conversation that it’s capable of having that kind of twists my mind, I mean a little bit, is when you start thinking this is not machine, it’s not rules-based. It’s actually interacting and engaging with the consumer in a very effective way. How is this happening and is it a complicated thing to set up, Josh?
[Josh] Yeah. It, it’s really not. A lot of it’s out of the box and I say it doesn’t have a memory. It has obviously the memory to learn about how to converse with a consumer. What limits to put on it, right? So, hey, you know, like maybe we can talk about the weather, but we’re not gonna talk about certain things out, you know, too far outside of the transaction. But, when you talk about the length of conversation, I think it’s really important too, because you talk about the average age of the home buyer. The second time transactor and that age is raising consistently and as you get into that retirement age where people are buying homes too, on the second, third, third go around, they want to talk to a consumer. They chat more, right? Yeah. And that’s what’s great about this AI assistant. This AI assistant doesn’t really care how long you know the call is, as long as they get to the point that goal point that they need at the end of the call, right? That qualified lead so they can have that conversation about it. Oh yeah, David, what’s the weather? Or you know, you know, just, you know, chatting back and forth about the transaction, answering questions. A lot of it’s the knowledge that you put into it, right? So you know, what is the 30 year fixed mortgage, giving them that detail. And like I said, it doesn’t really matter how long that call is. It can have those lengthier conversations that consumers want to have, so it can build that relationship. And on a lot of these, you can tell, like I said, out the 25, you know, there’s probably about five or six that really stand out that are high quality. You have consumers that are not really understanding that it’s AI that they’re talking to. It feels like they’re…
[David] Yeah, that’s the most amazing part. It, it is become so effective and so interactive at the same pace like you and I speak. I was just listening to your voice. I go, man, I think he just speaks as fast as I do. I have a real, he’s a bad habit or it, it is my pattern. I speak quickly and you do too. And ai, it seems to adjust and it’s not a paused, hesitated like get bored, you know, want to hang up. This is a computer. I mean, it’s really interactive and comes back quickly. I know total expert has that. So we met at the Total Expert Conference, reconnected again there. And so I want to give them a shout out on the success that they’re having with it. Candid also has it, there’s others companies that do have it out there, and it’s gonna be something we’re gonna see playing a bigger role. But the biggest fear that comes with that is. Is this gonna replace me as a mortgage loan originator? And I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. It’s a rhetorical question as far as I’m concerned, but I’d love to have you respond to it truly as a one of the leading technologists in our nation.
[Josh] Yeah. And I think that’s what we’re seeing more and more. And you, you talk about building trust. I go back to the, I think 2017 was the first Zilla home, a home report that we did. And the stat that always stands out is 66% of consumers still want that trusted resource on the other side to talk to. I think what you’re gonna see is you’re knocking, gonna, as see this, replace the loan officer, but we’re gonna see, it’s gonna see it enhance the loan officer. Yeah. I think I see clips on Facebook, right? or on Twitter all the time of these people that are, you know, let’s say doing loan, you know, they’re doing interviews right for a job and they have their phone pasted up there and they have the AI talking back, a lot of it’s like, okay, they’re using these tools now. It’s not great because you’re not getting them as a person. Right? But you’re getting that knowledge from a third party source that’s enhancing the conversation. Yeah, and you should think about that with a loan officer, right? You think? Well, if I can focus on what I need to, and I have this tool on the side that’s actually helping me with the information I need, whether it’s collecting that information and inserting it into my CRM or it’s giving me additional information about that consumer, maybe throughout a transaction, that’s gonna help me get them to into the right loan. Those are the gonna be the winners, right? The ones that are actually adopting and using it. Yeah. Now even go beyond the origination side. David, one of the things I’ve seen, there’s these tools and I almost call them development units in a box right?
[David] Say that again. Development?
[Josh] Yeah. Development units in a box, right or a product team in a box. So you talk about like lovable is one of these applications.
[David] Yes, that’s right. Lovable. Yeah.
[Josh] Yes or repli is one that I use quite frequently. And you talk about enhancing the process in lending using AI. Right. So you talk about, Hey, I can, I can leverage these third party applications. But you talk about even some of the backend development. So think about the things that you’re doing every day, whether like, Hey, you know, we have to submit these pricing adjustments to the, you know, secondary desk, or I need to Yeah, I need to submit this documentation. And it’s a manual process, right? or we’re doing, I’m passing you an Excel document on a daily basis to be able to see these transactions. Some of these tools like Revit or Lovable, are allowing these internal teams to go build their own proprietary tooling, right? So I can go into these tools and I can say, Hey, I need to, I need to deliver pricing adjustments every day to my secondary desk, or I need my secondary desk to distribute rate sheets. I can build that process out and I can actually enhance the internal operations of the organization too. It’s been a ton of fund. I’ve been talking to a couple lenders about it and how they’re leveraging it too, it’s not only for, you know, developing the tools, but even proof of concepts. You think about the days, the ideas that we have day to day. I was actually at a conference last month and we were using one of these tools, it was a, and we said, let’s use an example. Let’s take this loan officer API that we have from this organization and let’s build a loan officer directory that people can, you know, get all their contact information, collect a contact button within 30 minutes. We gave it, you know, let’s, let’s call it, you know, 10 or 12 different commands. It integrated with the API, it delivered us a webpage that had the loan officer directory on it. With a contact form that posted into HubSpot and then it had, it was deployed onto its own URL. So you talk about, yeah, you talk about the front end, you know, experience for AI, but then you talk about this back and it’s like there’s so much of that tooling that can be built and that can be advanced, and I think that’s what’s gonna be a game changer in the next year or two here is how people leverage that on the back end to deliver more unique experiences for their loan officer and for their customers.
[David] Well, I mean that’s, is that the, what you would say where lenders should be focusing on this coming year is those kind of technologies and tools?
[Josh] Yeah, I do, and I think the big question is gonna be what is, first of all, how many of these are gonna be tools that you want to use proven third parties, and then how many of these are gonna be tools where you can say, Hey. I need an internal team of business developers to go and build these out for us. Right? There’s gonna be a balance, right? You’re not gonna go rebuild a loan origination system, you’re not gonna go rebuild a product and pricing engine. But maybe when we wanna be more flexible with our landing pages internally, our landing pages, or maybe we wanna be more flexible with our knowledge base internally, I think that’s gonna be, that’s what you’re gonna start to see is people gravitate towards some of these tools to build their own proprietary things that maybe they were building through a PowerPoint or through Excel in the past.
[David] So many people are talking to me about agentic AI, the agents that are out there, if you could kinda give our listeners an update of what we can expect in these agents that are doing more and more of the lifting for us.
[Josh] Yeah. I think with agentic AI, I think what you’re seeing is very specific use cases, and I think that’s gonna be the focus, you know, one of the, like you think about data extraction as an agent, right? Like how can I do data extraction as a task and how can I bundle that so that way I can use that as a part of my workflow? So, there’s another tool, and the name is escaping me right now, but it really is focused on those agents, right? And how you tie these agents together because you, you wanna make sure each agent that you’re tying together is, is good, right? And it has the right. Set it has the right language learning model on the back end to be able to deliver a high quality experience. So I think what you’re gonna see is how do you take these different agents that you can either build internally, or maybe it’s a third party agent that a company delivered to tie together a great workflow. So maybe you have that agent that’s taken an application on the front end for you collecting certain data points from a consumer, and maybe you have those agents on the back end that’s doing some of the data processing. It’s not always gonna be the same person, but I think you’re gonna see both internally built agents, and then you’re gonna see a lot of these third party agents as well that are gonna tie into, build these great, great, beautiful workflows.
[David] Yeah, it’s so fascinating and when Sue Woodard spoke, I think it was Sue that did her presentation there. I love her as a friend and her presentations are always so gripping and so powerful, she talked about or in her presentation she showed a computer, an agentic AI for a person talking to an agentic AI at a hotel making a reservation. So two computers were talking and getting the reservation made, and it was very successful. It’s just like we hear about robotics, we hear more of that coming. That seems to be some of the things that we need to be paying attention to. There’s a bigger end-to-end type solutions that are being talked about. And I would like to get your perspective. We talked, I interviewed someone yesterday and they talked about so much of this information is siloed. You’ve gotta get this where we get the information in a central repository where AI is able to access more information or more of a complete data set rather than have to go to all these different data silos to be able to extract that information. Your thoughts on that?
[Josh] Yeah. Kind of reference back to what we did at Total Expert. You know, one of the last major, like major product releases was customer intelligence, right? and what we saw is we saw all these lenders that had great first party and third party data, right? They’re trying to pull in credit triggers, they’re trying to pull in equity data from all these different models they’re trying to pull in their rate engine. Because they know if they can tie all these pieces together, they can tell a great story to the consumer, and ultimately help the loan officer get that consumer into the right product at the right time. I think what you’re going to see with some of these agents is what’s trained on the right models or what’s trained on the right data and what’s trained on the wrong data right. Because the models, just like anything else, are only gonna be as good as the data that you put into. I think what you’re getting at here is you need to be able to have all of this data centrally, and I think you need to not underestimate some of the data points that you have in your ecosystem as well. Because every data point that you have that you’re putting into these systems is gonna drive better outputs for you, you know, tying this into, I’m working with a company called Direct Mailers. I know you and I have talked to Richard in the past. And they’re doing a lot of data collection on the front of the process. You think about direct mail being, I’ve sent out this postcard. Right. I’m throwing money at the wall and seeing what comes back. But there’s so much more to it. They’re collecting data points on who’s, you know, who’s scanning the QR code on this on this piece of mail or who’s, you know, on that landing page, what are they clicking into? You start to get a good picture of that consumer over time to understand what activities are, what third party data is being used, or what third party insights are coming in on that consumer and tie it into when that hits your first party to get a good end to end view of what that journey looks like right. And I think that’s the biggest thing is make sure you have all of your data accounted for and make sure you’re not underestimating some of it, because there could be those early stage data points that are real game changers in terms of, you know, understanding who’s gonna transact and who isn’t.
[David] Very few people in the industry know all of this as well as you do, especially working at some big companies, Total Expert, Zillow, coming, more tech. I would really like to hear what, now that you have your own company, what is the impact that you’re hoping to make on the industry and how can people start working with you?
[Josh] Yeah, you know, one of the things that we’ve been talking about all throughout this entire session is really connections, right? I think that’s one of the things that I crave is connection, right? Yes. I love connecting not only on the personal level, I’ve worked with all the LOS, the point of sales, you know, the CRMs, the CRAs, right? Like over time through these companies, I love being able to connect companies to actually build better outcomes for loan officers, for lenders and for consumers, right? and the great thing is I can do that on a business development level. It’s awesome, but it’s also great to do on a technology level. I am very passionate about technology integrations, tying these things together. If you have this great AI agent, is it gonna work that well if you don’t have it tied into the right data sources, the right systems of action, right? So I think that’s, those are the things that I’m really focused on is how can I help the, how can I help connect pieces of the industry better to drive better outcomes for consumers and for lenders. So yeah.
[David] There are so many, you’re, you’re basically playing a consulting role. And with so many of these lenders, I mean, that’s clearly what it is, but it’s coaching and consulting almost at the same time. There’s some level of consulting, but there’s also just coaching people through the process and how they use it. And I would love to get your take on the process when you’re working with someone. Give, give our listener an idea if they retain you. How would you work with them? How do you, how do you engage? Where’s the starting point? What’s the end point look like and the process and the meet in between?
[Josh] Yeah, and I mean, there’s two, definitely two sets of customers I work with, right. There’s definitely the vendor side and the lender side. And I love both of ’em. You know, the vendor side is fun because I get access to, so be being where I sit, there’s a lot of vendors that’ll come to me and they’ll say, Hey, we have this great value proposition, right? Like, we think it’s gonna be impactful. Well, it’s like, okay, well let’s talk through it. You know? Who’s your target customer doing that evaluation, say? Who’s your target customer? What is the value? you know, making sure they have all the basics? Who are your competitors? What’s your what? What’s your value prop that you’re giving out to the market? Who have you connected to? Where’s your proof points? And really understanding where that story is and then it’s pretty quick to grab and understand like, okay, here’s maybe where the gap is, right? Like you have, you know, for instance, one of my other customers. They have their developers doing all, they have their developers doing all the support work. It’s like, guys, like we can make some shifts here. Like let’s get some of that support work out so you can continue to drive innovation and we can get better answers to your customers. Right, on the lender side, it’s been super fun, honestly, I love to talk to lenders on a regular basis, so being in Lincoln, I’ll travel to Kansas City on a regular basis, or, you know, even fly out to like North Carolina, Virginia, even out to Irvine. And it’s fun to sit down with lenders and understand what struggles they’re running into. And that’s really how I, how I do it, is I like the lightweight conversations. I understand, you know, what problems are you running into, what are you looking for? What are you looking to invest in in the coming year? And really kind of hooking them up again, connecting them with the right vendor partners that are gonna fill a gap for them that maybe they weren’t aware of in the past. But it’s really easy for them to see the value proposition once they have visibility to them.
[David]Yeah, it’s fun to see all that you’ve got your hands in, and it’s not just Learjet that you’re doing. You also have your hands in some other ventures. Talk about those.
[Josh] Yes, we were talking about those. I have two other ventures that are being stood up right now, the first one will actually be launching later this month. It’s called Jetties, and the idea is called it’s Jet with Ease. So, jet with e. Okay. Yes. So this is actually, it’s a venture where I had two conferences that were overlapping and I was really excited to go to both of them. Well, I realized, you know, they are overlapping, so I can’t go to both of them. So I said, gosh, why isn’t there a central area where I can see all the conferences? Understand where my friends are going and maybe which ones that I don’t have, that I’m not going to today that I should. So I centralized all of this. It’s a networking tool, so it’s almost the, it’s almost a LinkedIn plus like a calendar management tool, right? So I mean, especially this time of year, it’s extremely relevant where you’re trying to understand, you know, budget wise, how much am I spending, which ones am I going to this year? Which ones are actually, you know, getting traction, right? It’s pulling all of that together and that one has been kind of a fun passion project for me that, like I said, we’re just launching. Then I have another one going here, in second quarter that we’re gonna be launching. So it’s allowed me to not only work with, you know, all these great companies, but build a couple on my own.
[David] That’s fun, that’s why I love the creativity that you have, what goes on in your brain is just exciting. Folks, I encourage listeners, I encourage you to reach out to Josh and get to know him, hear what’s going on. Is that it? There’s a lot going on up there and I always, I always tease, or I said, so much so that you don’t have room to grow. Because you just, you know, yeah. There’s so much, there’s a fire going on in there all the time. Uh, Josh, so good to have you on the podcast. How can people reach you again directly is their website, what do you recommend?
[Josh] Yes, for sure. So, website is lehrjet.com. That’s L-E-H-R-J-E t.com or you can reach out to me, it’s just josh@lehrjet.com. Love to have a conversation with anybody.
[David] Josh, thanks so much for being here. I’m really grateful. It’s always fun to see you at the conferences and I always learn something when I sit down with you and get a chance to chat. It’s just, by the way, kind of information that comes outta you. So that I find some of the times the most valuable. But it’s also your network. Your network or some of the most amazing companies out there. I’m really fascinated with consumer direct. That’s a big space of yours. You’re very much of an expert, so anyone who’s looking to get into consumer direct should also be having a conversation with you about what their plans are so you could help them. Guide them through that.
[Josh] I appreciate it, David. Yeah, it’s been, I’ve been blessed to be able to be on the consumer direct and on the distributed retail side, so both sides of the coin. It’s been great.
[David] Josh, thanks so much for being here, friend.
[Josh] Yep. Thank you.
[David] Wish you the best. Happy New Year.
[Josh] Happy New Year.
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With over 23 years of experience in financial services, I bring a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective to the industry. Having held diverse roles such as developer, product manager, partner relationship manager, industry advocate, and customer, I have collaborated with some of the most innovative companies in mortgage lending. My extensive background enables me to anticipate industry trends and adapt to evolving market demands effectively.
I am passionate about helping lenders guide consumers toward the right financial products. My dedication to the field has earned me significant recognition, including being named one of NMP’s 40 Under 40 Influential Achievers of 2020 and being honored in HousingWire’s 2021 HW Insiders list. Previously, at Mortech, a Zillow Group company, I played a pivotal role in expanding their online lending product suite. My professional journey is driven by a commitment to excellence and a dedication to positively impacting consumers’ financial lives.