Source: The Ritz Herald - 12/21/2024

News that artificial intelligence (AI) is redefining an industry might not seem like news at all. After all, we’ve come to expect AI’s transformative potential across a wide range of sectors. From healthcare to transportation and retail, AI has continuously proven its ability to streamline processes, improve efficiency, and drive innovation.

However, when that transformation is happening in an industry that has been slow to adopt AI solutions due to various challenges, such as legacy systems and regulatory hurdles, it’s worth noting.

This is the case with the commercial lending industry, where traditional methods of loan processing and underwriting have historically been time-consuming and prone to errors, barring many small business owners from accessing the financing they need to grow and thrive.

At the forefront of this AI-powered transformation is iBusiness Funding, a leading provider of business financing solutions designed for banks and lenders to help small and medium-sized businesses. Under the dynamic leadership of CEO Justin Levy, the company has already made huge strides in changing the face of the business lending world with LenderAI, its revolutionary software.

Designed to democratize access and streamline the lending process for both the lender and the borrower, LenderAI uses advanced algorithms to reduce the time and cost associated with traditional underwriting methods. Best of all, it does so without sacrificing the quality and thoroughness of human analysis.

iBusiness Funding’s latest move is poised to send further shockwaves across the traditionally rigid, time-consuming commercial lending industry. Recently, the company launched LenderAI Prodigy—a collection of chatbots integrated within their LenderAI software. This technology, according to Levy, is poised to revolutionize the way lenders help their borrowers.

LenderAI’s first chatbot (and the first of its kind in the industry) is designed to help users understand the nuances of the Small Business Administration’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). “Imagine having a virtual expert at your fingertips, ready to explain any nuance of the SBA SOPs or navigate through a labyrinth of credit policies,” says Levy. “That’s the reality we’ve created with our AI chatbots.”

This development is not just about convenience; it’s a strategic move to enhance accuracy and efficiency in the loan application process. “Our goal is to empower both lenders and borrowers with precise, real-time information,” Levy explains. “This reduces the time spent on finding answers and cuts down the risk of errors.”

Even so, iBusiness Funding isn’t resting on their laurels. Levy reveals that they have another chatbot in the works. The upcoming chatbot, customizable for each client, aims to help internal teams understand their company’s specific credit policies and guidelines. This feature represents a significant leap in personalized financial services.

This approach to integrating AI into financial services illustrates iBusiness Funding’s commitment to practical, forward-thinking innovation. Levy, a seasoned entrepreneur with a keen eye for technological solutions, believes that the true potential of AI lies in its application to real-world problems.

“AI is not new; it has just become accessible to a much larger audience now that the models can be utilized using clicks instead of writing code,” he says. “As with any successful machine learning algorithm or model, it’s key to have a specific objective in mind that is being solved by your AI application.”

However, Levy is acutely aware of the concerns surrounding AI, particularly regarding bias and privacy. For him, AI is a powerful tool that, if used wisely, can transform the efficiency and accuracy of lending processes—not a magic wand that suddenly makes all challenges disappear. It’s one of the reasons why the ethical deployment of AI is a cornerstone of iBusiness Funding’s philosophy.

“Today’s world has a tendency to view AI as the be-all and end-all solution. That’s a risky perspective,” he notes. “AI excels at specific tasks that, when combined together, can increasingly perform more complicated ones, such as underwriting and decisioning jobs for specific parts of an extensive loan process. But when it comes to something broader, like fully automated approval decisions, we are still a little ways away from that. This is mainly due to the nature of the very unstructured and disparate data sources that are essential in the process.”

As iBusiness Funding continues to expand its suite of AI-powered tools, the future looks promising. Levy envisions a world where financial analysis is not just digitized but also democratized, where manual processes that lead to inherent costs are automated and do not hinder access to capital.

“Our mission is to simplify financial lending processes, making them more accessible and understandable for everyone. This is how we contribute to the success of lenders and small businesses,” Levy concludes.

In the grand scheme of things, iBusiness Funding, led by Justin Levy, is not just revolutionizing lending; it’s setting the stage for a new era in business finance where success is determined not by the size of a company but by the quality of support it receives. With iBusiness Funding’s AI-driven approach, it seems that such a future is already on the horizon.