Takeaways from Blend Forum 2025: The Forces Shaping Tomorrow’s Lending

Blend Forum has quickly become one of the most influential gatherings in financial services. What began as a 30-person roundtable in Napa Valley has steadily expanded. This year, more than 120 executives from banks, credit unions, and Independent Mortgage Banks convened near the iconic TPC Sawgrass to define the future of lending.

In his opening keynote, Nima Ghamsari, Co-Founder and Head of Blend, set the tone with a message that reverberated throughout the event: the speed of technology adoption is now the defining advantage for lenders. 

Institutions that shift from pilots to practice, focusing on use cases that materially reduce costs and strengthen relationships, will set the pace for our industry. That urgency shaped every panel and breakout, surfacing four big takeaways from Forum 2025:

Takeaway 1: Closing the orchestration gap is the biggest opportunity in lending

Lenders have invested heavily in digitization, yet costs have barely come down. According to STRATMOR Group, the average cost per loan has actually increased to well over $10,000, largely because of manual work and siloed systems that don’t talk to each other. The problem is not a lack of technology, its fragmentation. Closing this orchestration gap is the real opportunity, and agentic AI is the catalyst to make it possible.

What Blend describes as Intelligent Origination is about more than layering agentic AI on top of existing workflows. It means embedding intelligence into the core of the platform so that every step of the origination lifecycle, from application to funding to compliance, is connected, automated, and anticipatory. The result is an ecosystem that reduces the hidden costs of disjointed systems and moves lenders beyond incremental fixes toward true step-change economics.

“The only way we’re gonna cut into the $10,000 cost of originating a single loan is by having the AI actually do things, not just tell you things.” 

Nima Ghamsari
Co-Founder & CEO, Blend

Takeaway 2: Relationships are the growth engine, and AI is the force multiplier

“We’re entering a rate-lock gap. Homeowners with 3% mortgages aren’t listing. Instead of selling, they’re tapping their equity. That’s why more of your customers will turn to home equity loans and HELOCs.” 

Nomi Prins
Political-Financial Expert, Journalist & Author

This dynamic creates a natural opening to re-engage households lenders already know and trust. The challenge is scale: simply adding staff isn’t sustainable. That’s where AI comes in. By handling routine work like document checks, follow-ups, and compliance notes, AI frees frontline teams to spend more time on what matters most — trust, advice, and relationship-building.

Done well, strong home equity and refinance programs defend existing households from competitors and open doors to new ones, especially younger borrowers who are quick to move deposits to the institution that meets their credit needs.

Takeaway 3: Personalization is the new battleground

If orchestration reduces costs and relationships unlock growth, personalization is what makes both stick. Customers now expect their institutions to know them in context, not just by name. And asking for data they’ve already provided feels outdated.

“A few years ago, we worried about the creepy factor — like, do customers really want us to pre-fill their information? But now it’s the expectation. They don’t understand why we’re asking for data we already have. If you service my loan, you should just know my balance. That’s the baseline for personalization today.” 

Chris Saak
Senior Product Manager, VP US Bank

Meeting that bar means turning data into action: guided journeys that feel simple and relevant, not endless menus. AI will be the catalyst, beginning with back-office efficiency and moving toward front-end intelligence that anticipates needs and delivers timely next steps.

Takeaway 4: Partnerships and easy adoption are the accelerants

A clear closing message from Forum was that speed matters, but adoption has to be easy. Lenders don’t have the luxury of long re-platforming projects; they need modular solutions that plug into existing systems and scale quickly.

Partnerships are what make that possible. Throughout the event, attendees engaged with ecosystem partners who showcased how their capabilities extend the value of the Blend platform — from Covered simplifying home insurance at the point of lending, to Truework and Trustage bringing innovation in verifications and financial protection, to Doma demonstrating how closings can become faster and more seamless. These collaborations illustrate what an open ecosystem looks like in practice: the best specialists working side by side with lenders to accelerate transformation.

“We can only do one or two things and be really great at them. We’re empowering partners and leaning on them to drive innovation in the areas around that.” 

Nima Ghamsari
Co-Founder & CEO, Blend

Final Thoughts

Taken together, these takeaways mark a new chapter for lending; one where technology is no longer an experiment but a proven driver of efficiency, loyalty, and competitive advantage. The institutions that act with urgency will not just keep pace with change, they will set it.

We’re excited to carry this momentum into Austin on August 24–26, 2026, with an even larger audience. If you’re a bank, lender, or technology provider looking to reimagine the future of lending and connect with industry peers, reach out at events@blend.com.