More than half of consumers now use AI to help navigate financial decisions, up from 10 percent just a year ago, according to TD Bank data. Newrez is trying to be the lender waiting for them when they do.
The Fort Washington, Pennsylvania-based mortgage company recently launched Rezi Mortgage Assistant, a custom GPT available for free in OpenAI’s GPT Store. Newrez is claiming a first: the initial top-10 mortgage originator to deploy a consumer-facing AI mortgage guide built directly into ChatGPT.
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The assistant is trained on Newrez’s own underwriting guidelines and product criteria rather than generic mortgage content. Answers reflect what Newrez will actually lend, rather than industry averages that may not withstand contact with an underwriter.
“We built Rezi Mortgage Assistant to bring clear, Newrez-specific mortgage guidance directly into the platform where millions of consumers already go for answers,” Brian Woodring, chief information officer at Newrez, said in a statement. “By applying our actual underwriting and lending logic inside ChatGPT, we’re giving borrowers an accessible way to learn without pressure.”
The product is designed to let prospective borrowers research without triggering a sales process, with no forms, no phone calls and no loan officer handoff until the consumer initiates one. The conversion logic is implied: A borrower who’s already met Newrez’s lending criteria is presumably easier to close than a cold lead.
The TD Bank data driving the launch framing skews heavily toward younger cohorts, with 77 percent of Gen Z and 72 percent of millennials reporting that they use AI for financial guidance, compared to 49 percent of Gen X and 30 percent of baby boomers. Whether a ChatGPT-native tool reaches the homebuyers most likely to actually transact in today’s constrained market is a separate question.
Rezi joins a growing category of mortgage and real estate AI tools aimed at the early funnel, a part of the homebuying journey that has historically been difficult to own. The distinction Newrez emphasizes is proprietary grounding: The assistant draws specifically on Newrez guidelines, not a general-purpose knowledge base.
“Whether someone is buying their first home or exploring ways to tap into their equity, Rezi Mortgage Assistant puts trusted guidance right at their fingertips,” said Leslie Gillin, chief commercial officer at Newrez. “It helps demystify the mortgage process and removes friction by giving borrowers relevant answers from the start, allowing them to learn on their own terms.”
