In an AI-driven mortgage market, brokers’ edge is hybrid, human-plus-digital advice that customers can truly trust
While some intermediaries worry that regulation and technology are resetting how mortgage business is won, NatWest’s Lloyd Cochrane takes a more optimistic view of the future for brokers. He believes that while the rise of digital journeys and AI will undoubtedly change what intermediaries do – but not remove the need for independent guidance at the heart of the market.
Cochrane, who leads NatWest’s mortgage, home insurance and life insurance products, spoke to Mortgage Introducer about how customers are already engaging differently with lenders, the scale of the digital challenge for brokers, and why he expected hybrid models of advice to emerge rather than a purely automated future.
Digital journeys as a competitive challenge
Cochrane said NatWest was seeing “ever increasing numbers” of customers willing to complete their mortgage journey digitally.
“It’s still a small market,” he said, “but it’s a market that’s growing.”
These customers were not only choosing online applications instead of walking into a branch or phoning the bank; in some cases, they were also choosing digital channels instead of speaking to a broker.
“Customers are going more digitally,” he said. “What they’re doing is starting and continuing a digital application rather than walking into a branch or phoning us directly. But they’re also doing that rather than speaking to a broker.”
He described the digital channel as “a challenge for intermediaries” because it gives consumers an alternative starting point for their mortgage journey that does not automatically involve advice.
At the same time, he noted that customers do not live their lives in neat silos. The regulatory “wall” that once separated advice from digital journeys has, in his view, been dismantled.
“Previously, there was a big wall between them,” he said. “The FCA have taken that wall down. And that’s great today. But as we think about how AI can help us to help customers, that’s even better for tomorrow.”
That flexibility creates scope for richer, blended experiences, where borrowers can self-serve for much of the process but step into a human conversation at critical moments — without losing the ability to continue digitally afterwards.
AI and the changing nature of advice
Beyond digitisation, Cochrane sees AI as a “bigger, longer term” force reshaping both customer behaviour and the advisory model.
“I think probably the bigger, longer term threat… the question is what — how do customers use AI and what does that mean for where customers go to start their mortgage conversation?” he said.
He expects future borrowers to arrive at discussions far better informed.
“They’ll be armed with more information,” he said. “So a lot of the time it will be less asking for advice starting from scratch, but asking for clarifications or maybe dispelling things that they’ve heard or things that have come up in their own research.”
That, he suggested, will change the character of advice. Instead of starting with the basics, brokers may spend more time clarifying, correcting or contextualising what customers think they already know — and helping them navigate conflicting answers from AI tools or online sources.
However, Cochrane does not see AI primarily as a means for lenders to bypass intermediaries.
“I don’t think of AI as helping us reach customers directly, particularly,” he said. “It’s really about customers’ choice.”
He emphasised why brokers have been so successful to date.
“The reason that brokers are so successful is that customers value their ability to reassure them that they’re getting a good deal across the whole market and to help them with the complex process,” he said. “It’s a complex market with lots of different products and so guidance as to what the best product is for you will always be valuable.”
Over time, he expects lenders to reduce the administrative burden involved in securing a mortgage.
“Over time we would seek to make the process of getting a mortgage really, really straightforward,” he said, suggesting that “the sort of giving the administrative burden to somebody probably becomes less important.”
What will remain crucial, he argued, is “giving confidence that you’re getting independent guidance as to what’s your best choice.”
A hybrid future for intermediaries
Cochrane is clear that intermediaries will continue to play a central role in the mortgage ecosystem, but he is candid about how that role may evolve.
“I think customers in the future will be saying who’s best to help me with those same problems,” he said. “If customers come to us because we’re helpful in the market in general, then brilliant. But they will also always want to have somebody independent.”
“The question is, what does that somebody look like?” he added. “Is it a traditional broker? Or is it some hybrid of an agent that helps and a human that reassures? That’s a big question. I don’t think any of us really understand how that will evolve completely.”
What he is confident about is that the market will remain complex, product choice will remain broad, and customers will continue to want someone on their side — someone who can cut through noise, interpret regulation and criteria, and give them confidence that they are making the right decision.
For brokers, his message is not to fear technology and AI, but to adapt. In a world where customers arrive better informed and administrative friction is lower, the core value of trusted, independent judgement may become even more important. The competitive edge, he suggests, will lie less in managing manual steps and more in helping a nervous borrower make sense of the biggest financial commitment of their life in a digital, AI-enabled age.
