Canada's rate outlook shifted a bit after Wednesday's BoC rate cut, and that shift benefits rate floaters.

To paint the picture, here's a hot-off-the-press chart of the forward rate outlook from CanDeal DNA.

Canada's stretched-thin homeowners caught another break from our central Bank today. Team Macklem dialled back the overnight rate to a breezy 4.50%, setting up a drop in benchmark prime to 6.70% tomorrow.
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The move will:

Artificial intelligence isn't new to Canada's mortgage industry. It's been around since at least the mid-1990s.

CMHC was an early adopter of AI-like systems in 1996 with its revolutionary emili automated default insurance underwriting system. emili zapped approval times from snail-paced days to lightning-fast seconds. For mortgage consumers and originators, it was like going from dial-up to broadband.

For most mortgage professionals, the real "aha" moment for AI didn't hit until 2023. That's when ChatGPT changed the game. By leveraging high-power chips and training its sophisticated model with massive datasets, AI could instantly process answers based on billions of parameters.

Fast forward to today, and, for the first time, AI is creating possibilities like self-teaching automated underwriting bots, predictive default analytics based on a borrower's entire online profile, and eerily human-like voice-based advice.

To delve into how AI is changing mortgage lending, we spoke with Subodha Kumar, Ph.D., the Paul R. Anderson Distinguished Chair Professor at Temple University. Kumar's specialty is AI disruption, including in the mortgage business. He's been ranked #1 worldwide for publishing in Information Systems Research.
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"We've partnered with some of the largest banks in the world, like TD Bank and Wells Fargo," Kumar says. As we speak, he's helping those banks harness AI to radically improve the customer experience and shave millions in costs.

From his treasure trove of experience, Kumar gave MLN a peek at seven AI game-changers for the mortgage business.