The Work Only Matters When It Leaves the Room

What the 2026 MISMO Fall Summit revealed about collaboration, implementation and what comes next

More than 430 people registered for the MISMO Fall Summit in Reston, with over 300 joining us in person. Those numbers matter, especially at a time when our industry has no shortage of conferences competing for attention. But attendance was not the story I carried home with me.

The story was what happened once everyone got in the room.

I watched lenders, servicers, regulators, GSEs, technology providers, credit agencies and consultants put aside company interests long enough to work on shared industry challenges. I watched competitors disagree, compare ideas and still look for a path forward. Most importantly, I saw clear evidence that our conversations are moving from awareness toward adoption.

That is where this work becomes real.

Nearly a year ago, I sat in an MBA RESBOG Committee meeting where a question came into focus: What could MISMO and this community do to help the mortgage industry govern artificial intelligence responsibly? That question became FRAME, the Framework for Responsible AI in the Mortgage Ecosystem.

At the Fall Summit, well over 100 people spent several hours learning how to put FRAME into practice. More than a dozen industry volunteers led sessions focused on implementation. What began as an industry request is becoming a movement.

Rick Hill deserves special recognition for helping turn that idea into something the industry can use. He has poured his time, expertise, leadership and patience into FRAME, and all of us owe him a debt of gratitude.

The following day, Joyce Walsh of Fannie Mae and Dan Miller of Freddie Mac reinforced why this work matters. Joyce described the importance of inventory, accountability, a risk-based approach and ongoing monitoring. She called FRAME comprehensive and complete and said it can help organizations get started. Dan described governance as an accelerator, called FRAME a strong set of principles and said leveraging it is becoming table stakes.

We also introduced two new certifications. The FRAME Advisory Partner Certification will recognize organizations capable of helping lenders and servicers implement sound AI governance. The AI Governance Certification will validate governance practices supporting AI-enabled mortgage technology. FRAME provides the foundation. These certifications add qualified support and transparency.

The message was straightforward: responsible AI cannot remain a policy document sitting on a shared drive. It needs ownership, evidence, controls, testing, oversight and monitoring.

Credit modernization generated another of the Summit’s most important conversations. Clayton Collins moderated leaders from Experian, FICO, VantageScore, TransUnion and Equifax on the same stage. They compete. They do not agree on everything. Yet they shared a consistent message that consumers’ financial lives have changed and the data used to understand them must keep pace.

Experian research involving 2,000 prospective homebuyers found that one-third would walk away from a lender relying only on older scoring models that exclude rental and utility payment histories. Modernized credit reporting could help as many as 7.7 million people improve their scores. Susan Allen of Experian put the issue clearly: a consumer with a thin traditional credit file does not necessarily have a thin financial life.

The discussion covered trended scores, rental reporting, cash-flow analysis, alternative data and capital-markets implications. It also carried a warning. More data is not automatically better unless lenders understand its quality, relevance, cost and appropriate use. Better data should help the industry see risk more accurately.

The connection to AI was hard to miss. Consumers are already using it to prepare for homeownership and may arrive with better questions. The industry must determine when an AI tool crosses into licensed activity and where a human must remain firmly in the process.

Housing policy was also front and center. MBA’s Rachel Kelley and Brendan McKay of the Broker Action Coalition discussed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the most significant housing legislation in decades. The law combines more than 60 individual provisions, including 36 bipartisan measures, and addresses residential, commercial and multifamily housing.

The manufactured-housing provisions may prove especially meaningful. Brendan challenged the industry’s tendency to confuse manufactured housing with mobile homes. Factory-built housing can often be produced more efficiently and at a lower cost than site-built housing. The legislation will not flip a switch overnight, but it could help create more homes and more affordable choices over time. Housing remains one of the rare issues where both political parties have reason to keep working together.

My fireside conversation with Ginnie Mae President Joe Gormley brought several Summit themes together: modernization, data quality, artificial intelligence and collaboration. We explored how standards support Ginnie Mae’s modernization goals, why trusted data has become a strategic asset and where AI can safely remove friction. The larger point is that modernization is no longer a technology project. It affects how lenders interact with agencies, how defects are prevented upstream and how information travels from application through servicing and securitization.

That same need for connected infrastructure was visible in MISMO’s work on title and closing, the Tri-Party eNote Bailee Agreement, credit reporting and the Mortgage Compliance Dataset. eNotes represented 13 percent of MERS registrations in July. Yet lenders still face the expense of negotiating separate agreements among lenders, warehouse lenders and investors. Standards can remove friction, but only when the market adopts them.

We also recognized two new Certified MISMO Standards Professionals and 14 new Associate MISMO Standards Professionals. That may not generate the loudest headline, but it matters. Standards do not implement themselves. The industry needs people who understand how to apply them across increasingly connected data, process and technology environments.

At our Winter Summit, I introduced three priorities for MISMO: Awareness. Adoption. Alignment. Looking around the room in Reston, awareness was unmistakable. The opportunity now is to turn that energy into adoption and alignment inside every organization represented.

Because ultimately, the work only matters when it leaves the room.

None of this happens without people. This was my third Summit as part of the MISMO team, and I left Reston with an even greater appreciation for the preparation, administration and execution behind the experience. I am proud of our MISMO 6-Pack team and grateful to Rosalyn and Bernie from MBA for the care they brought to every attendee interaction.

Six people. One mighty team. A very big impact.

The same could be said of the broader MISMO community. We are not the largest organization in mortgage finance, but when hundreds of people show up, share their expertise and put the industry’s needs ahead of their own, we can accomplish some remarkable things.

Reston reminded me that collaboration is not the soft side of progress. It is how progress gets built. Now the responsibility belongs to all of us to take what we learned, put it to work and keep moving the industry forward.