The Digital Future Still Needs title Insurance And the Expertise Of professionals 

A new year often brings renewed confidence that technology will change everything. And 2026 is no exception. Across industries, artificial intelligence is being framed as the next major force reshaping operations, customer expectations, and the way businesses evaluate risk. Real estate is at the center of that conversation, and title and settlement companies are not just on the sidelines. 

In fact, the title industry has already moved quickly. According to a recent survey conducted by Qualia, more than 90% of title and escrow professionals have adopted generative AI in at least one form. AI adoption isn’t limited to the largest firms, either. For small and mid-sized companies, AI represents an increasingly affordable way to reduce redundancies, improve responsiveness, and modernize workflows without expanding headcount. 

But as AI becomes more common across housing finance, it is also drawing heightened attention from regulators and policymakers — many of whom are rightly concerned that AI tools could be deployed in ways that introduce unfairness, reduce transparency or create consumer disadvantage. Those concerns are growing while market pressure is intensifying to digitize and accelerate transaction timelines. 

That tension between innovation and accountability is one reason the title industry’s approach to AI matters. The industry is actively working toward responsible adoption, recognizing that title is different from many other financial services products, and that the risks of misuse can fall squarely on homeowners and lenders. 

How AI is being used — and where guardrails matter 

AI is already being applied in title operations, but largely in ways that focus on workflow efficiency and data consistency, rather than automated decision-making. 

Broadly, title companies are using AI in three ways. 

First, communication support. Title and escrow companies are using AI-enabled customer tools, such as including chatbots and drafting assistants, to answer routine questions, speed up responses, and improve visibility into transaction status. 

Second, document and data workflow support. AI is increasingly used behind the scenes to extract key information from documents, reconcile inconsistencies, and carry accurate data through the closing and policy lifecycle. This helps reduce manual re-entry and catch mismatches earlier, which can lower operational risk and free professionals to focus on defect resolution and higher-value review work. 

Third, preliminary screening and decision-support. In routine, low-risk scenarios, AI can help flag transactions that appear consistent with standard processing criteria. When anything falls outside the expected pattern those files are escalated. 

This last point is key: in title, AI is typically being used to support decisions in routine situations, not to replace underwriting judgment or claims handling. This is an important distinction from the way AI is increasingly being deployed in other insurance lines. 

Why title is different from other insurance 

Most lines of insurance rely on predictive risk modeling: trying to estimate the likelihood of a future loss event. Title operates differently. Title focuses on identifying and resolving existing defects and risks — often buried deep in historical records — before a transaction closes. 

That difference has significant implications for how AI can responsibly be applied. 

AI can be effective at organizing data, scanning documents, and identifying inconsistencies. But title professionals are not simply looking for a probabilistic risk score. They are validating the legal integrity of ownership. And “close enough” does not work in a chain of title. The standard isn’t “good enough to approve.” It’s accurate enough to protect property rights. 

Public records are often fragmented, inconsistent, and maintained across thousands of jurisdictions with varying processes. AI can help navigate those systems more efficiently. But AI cannot cure a defect, interpret a legal nuance, resolve an exception or coordinate a corrective action across stakeholders. Those remain human responsibilities. Not because the industry is resisting change, but because real-world complexity demands professional accountability. 

The promise of AI — and the danger of overreach 

Used appropriately, AI can help title and settlement companies operate more efficiently and keep costs contained. And that matters for the broader housing ecosystem, where affordability pressures are a growing focus. 

But the largest risks emerge when AI is applied in areas where it is not appropriate, particularly where it is used to make coverage decisions based solely on automated searches. 

Some companies now claim they can use AI to make “instant title decisions” and recommend forgoing coverage based on that output. The refinance market is often viewed as a testing ground for this approach. 

This is where caution is warranted. Coverage decisions should never be based solely on automated review of public records — even with sophisticated algorithms — because some of the costliest risks do not appear in public records at all. Fraud, forgery, identity misrepresentation and other off-record risks are not identifiable through automated record searches. 

Recent ALTA research underscores the point. More than 40% of refinance losses and expenses are linked to fraud and forgery issues, and the average claim cost exceeds $200,000. 

A future that is promising — and still exploratory 

What makes 2026 such an important moment is that the future is clearly coming into view — but much of it remains exploratory. The industry is still determining where AI creates real value, where it introduces risk, and where it requires guardrails to maintain consumer protection and market stability. 

That was clear at last year’s ALTA ONE conference in New York, where the executive leadership of the major underwriters shared the stage for a Q&A — and each of them emphasized AI as central to the future of the industry. That kind of alignment signals more than optimism. It signals commitment to modernization, to investment and to building the operational frameworks needed to use AI responsibly. 

And that’s the real story. The question isn’t whether AI will shape title and settlement. It already is. The question is whether the industry can adopt it in ways that enhance consumer experience, improve efficiency and strengthen trust, without introducing disadvantage or lowering the standards that protect property rights. 

If AI is used as a tool — to reduce redundant work, surface inconsistencies, and focus human expertise where it matters most — it can meaningfully improve the closing process. But if it is used to replace professional review in areas where certainty is required, it risks doing the opposite: putting homebuyers and lenders in greater peril, not less. 

The digital future is here. The title industry is embracing it. But the safest, most sustainable path forward will be one built on innovation and accountability, because in real estate, the cost of getting it wrong is too high.  

Chris Morton is the CEO of ALTA.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: zeb@hwmedia.com.