Agentic AI for Credit Underwriting: Bringing Precision and Scale to Lending

What Challenges Does Credit Underwriting Face Today?

Whether evaluating a commercial real estate (CRE) loan, a commercial and industrial (C&I) facility, or a private credit deal, the process demands accuracy, speed, and judgment.

Yet, most underwriters still spend an outsized portion of their day on manual tasks:

➡️ Reviewing loan packets that can exceed 300 pages, including audited financials, tax returns, rent rolls, debt schedules, guarantor statements, and property appraisals

➡️ Re-keying data from PDFs and spreadsheets into internal systems or Moody’s Risk Analyst templates

➡️ Building financial spreads across multiple periods, consolidating subsidiaries, and normalizing GAAP vs IFRS differences

➡️ Drafting credit memos that require not just data but a coherent risk narrative

The result? Weeks-long turnaround times, inconsistent decision-making across teams, and potential errors that can either approve weak credits or miss strong ones.

This is where Agentic AI for credit underwriting is changing the game.

How Does Agentic AI Handle Complex Document Extraction in Underwriting? [An Example]

Imagine you’re opening a loan packet for a mid-sized commercial real estate deal. There’s a 120-page PDF with an appraisal, rent roll, audited financial statements, tax returns, and a few Excel schedules from the borrower.

Normally, you’d have to figure out which document is which, skim through numbers, and manually enter key figures into your spread template. By the time you’re done categorizing and checking, a day, or even two, has gone by.

Now, with Agentic AI for credit underwriting, that first hurdle disappears. The AI agent “reads” every document, even scanned PDFs or multi-tab Excel sheets, and understands the context. It can automatically:

✔️ Tag the rent roll and pull occupancy rates, lease expirations, and rental income per unit

✔️ Extracts EBITDA and net income, distinguishing adjusted vs. unadjusted figures

✔️ Identify collateral values from the appraisal and match them against your LTV thresholds

✔️ Recognize tax filing periods, classify historical trends, and flag anomalies

This means your team spends less time hunting for numbers and more time analyzing risk, stress-testing assumptions, and making judgment calls on covenant headroom, leverage ratios, or DSCR thresholds.

And because the AI works off your templates and context rules, the output aligns with your internal standards every time, no matter how complex the loan packet is.

Can Agentic AI Automate Financial Spreading for CRE, C&I, and Private Credit?

Absolutely. It can handle everything from document extraction to ratio calculations while aligning to your institution’s templates.

Here’s how it works across different loan types:

How Does Agentic AI Accelerate Credit Memo Generation?

We all know how much time goes into pulling together a credit memo.

You’ve got financial spreads, borrower details, collateral info – and then you need to turn it into a coherent narrative that your committee can actually use.

With Agentic AI, a lot of this process can happen automatically:

✔️ Instant data integration: Pulls structured financials, loan details, and supporting documents directly into the memo template.

✔️ Automated narrative generation: Creates draft sections that summarize borrower profile, financial performance, and collateral information.

✔️ Risk flagging in real time: Highlights covenant breaches, DSCR thresholds, or unusual ratios for immediate attention.

✔️ Template consistency: Ensures every memo adheres to internal formatting and compliance standards without manual adjustment.

The Business Impact of Agentic AI for Credit Underwriting

For institutions across North America, Europe, and South Africa, the operational benefits are tangible:

✔️ Turnaround times shrink from weeks to days or hours, giving lenders a competitive edge in deal execution.

✔️ Consistency across teams, every underwriter works off the same templates and risk framework.

✔️ Error reduction minimizes re-work and prevents costly misclassifications.

✔️ Bias mitigation ensures strong credits aren’t overlooked and weaker credits don’t slip through due to oversight.

✔️ Regulatory alignment outputs are explainable, which makes it easier to meet audit and compliance standards.

Why is Now the Right Time for Agentic AI in Credit Underwriting?

If you’ve been in underwriting for a while, you know how 2025 feels.

→ Borrowers expect decisions in days, not weeks.

→ Regulators expect transparency and traceability.

→ Boards expect every credit decision to reflect consistent risk discipline.

Teams that bring in agentic AI don’t just speed up the work; they get time back to actually think about risk, challenge assumptions, and spot opportunities that might otherwise slip through. The AI handles the tedious tasks, and your team focuses on decisions that really matter.

Everyone who’s lived the day-to-day knows this isn’t just convenience; it changes how underwriting actually works. Fast, precise, consistent, and still under your control. That’s the reality now.

Top FAQs on Agentic AI in Credit Underwriting