Autonomous AI agents: The new digital employees helping deliver superior SBA lending journeys

Did you know lending teams spend nearly 35% of the total time of their work hours manually processing borrower documentation?

Business lending teams frequently handle mountains of loan applications and supporting documents. With ever-changing SBA, CRE, lending guidelines, this workload has only intensified. Recent rule updates redefine borrower eligibility, documentation requirements, and lending justification, significantly increasing the pressure on lenders to process documents swiftly, accurately, and compliantly.

Rising Pressure, Higher Stakes

Today, SBA and CRE lenders must ensure rigorous credit checks and higher borrower equity, leading to more exhaustive due diligence, reporting, and documentation. Manual documentation practices strain lenders, slowing funding cycles, raising operational costs, and increasing human error rates. Missed compliance steps or delayed paperwork can erode borrower trust and delay critical loan approvals.

Why Traditional Automation Falls Short

Traditional automation tools digitize tasks but still require significant manual oversight, limiting efficiency and increasing frustration. Complex loan processing often demands nuanced decision-making beyond conventional automated systems.

This is precisely why agentic AI's arrival could not be better timed. It gives lenders the opportunity to find long-term solutions to address their most pressing documentation challenges.

Introducing Agentic AI in Lending

Agentic AI leverages groups of autonomous AI agents equipped with advanced reasoning and collaborative capabilities. Driven by powerful large language models (LLMs), these digital agents independently handle complex, multi-step lending processes. They manage document intake, classification, verification, compliance checks, and borrower communications, proactively addressing issues before they escalate into loan rejections.

Agentic AI provides:

• Versatile Document Handling: Processes structured PDFs, handwritten scans, and even smartphone-captured images.
• Automatic PII Protection: Redacts and encrypts personally identifiable information (PII) instantly.
• Intelligent Document Management: Smartly labels, auto-tags, names, and routes documents directly to the right lending systems or workflows.
• Transparent Monitoring: Offers a real-time, end-to-end visibility dashboard showing detailed progress on every application.
• Contextual Decision-making: Uses context-based intelligence, reducing the need for human intervention, yet seamlessly handing off tasks when human judgment is required.

Real-World Scenario

Imagine a borrower sends a low-quality scanned document via mobile phone late on a Friday evening. Previously, this would sit idle until manual review the following week, slowing down the entire loan approval process. Today, Agentic AI immediately recognizes, classifies, and validates the document, flags missing information, sends automatic follow-up requests directly to the borrower, securely redacts sensitive details, and routes completed documents to underwriting—all without human intervention.

Meet DocuAgentIQ by Decimal Point Analytics

DocuAgentIQ, our flagship Agentic AI platform at Decimal Point Analytics (DPA), combines decades of financial services expertise with state-of-the-art technology. Specifically designed for SBA, CRE lenders, and brokers, DocuAgentIQ addresses high-volume documentation and administrative burdens that slow down loan processing.

Our AI-powered co-pilot:

• Drastically reduces document handling time
• Eliminates repetitive client follow-ups through automated reminders
• Identifies issues proactively, minimizing rejection risks
• Ensures seamless integration with LOS platforms, CRM tools, Microsoft Outlook, and cloud storage such as OneDrive
• Provides customizable AI training, securely using your own data within your environment for heightened accuracy and security

Combining decades of expertise and experience in the financial services domain with excellent capabilities in the technology department, DPA offers DocuAgentIQ to handle the high-volume documentation needs and tedious administrative tasks in SBA lending. This tool also caters to the specific needs of SBA and CRE lenders and brokers based on our extensive insights drawn from working with clients in these domains.

The way forward

We believe AI agents represent the future of SBA lending, acting as tireless digital employees who significantly enhance efficiency, accuracy, and compliance. DocuAgentIQ helps lending teams refocus their valuable human talent towards strategic growth and client relationships rather than mundane tasks.

Ready to transform your SBA lending operations?

Do visit our SBA Agentic AI page to understand how we can address your specific needs. You can schedule a demo here.