Smartr365 accelerates its broker advice process by 60% with Microsoft Azure AI

As a leading mortgage broker platform powering over 20% of the UK market, Smartr365 knew that legacy systems and processes were leaving brokers frustrated. Historically, brokers have faced a balancing act between delivering trusted advice and navigating a maze of administrative tasks, including re-entering data across multiple systems, chasing and uploading documents, manually classifying and storing files, navigating complex product searches, and ensuring compliance at every stage.

“Brokers carry a lot of cognitive load every day,” says Damon Macklin, Chief Product Officer, Product Vision and Customer Advocacy. “While our system was functional, we knew there was a huge opportunity to leverage AI to really transform their experience. We wanted to reduce that constant friction. And provide brokers the tools to be able to do their best work.”

Deployment without disruption

But this wasn’t going to be an easy task. Those new improvements needed to be rolled into live broker workflows without increasing risk, operational complexity, or performance overhead. “Trust and timing were critical,” says Luke Murphy, Chief Information Officer, Infrastructure, Compliance & Security. “Our AI document-reading and validation needed to be accurate enough to rely on from the beginning, fast enough to avoid slowing down case progression, and transparent enough that brokers didn’t feel they were handing control to a black box.”

What helped was Azure’s integrated AI, data, and security services that gave Smartr365 a unified foundation. By standardizing data and workflows before layering AI capabilities on top, the company was able to introduce intelligent automation in a controlled and scalable way, enabling rapid experimentation and seamless scalability without operational disruption. “We focused first on architectural clarity and operational discipline,” explains Luke Murphy, “which then allowed us to use AI to enhance the processes that we knew mattered to users.” Smartr365 used Azure’s breadth of services—including Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Azure Document Intelligence, Microsoft Azure Functions, and Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB—to build AI deeply into its workflows.

“With Azure DevOps, every step in the process was clear and it was inherent in our internal workflow,” notes Bryan Kidd, Managing Director. “We have daily control that reduces our level of operational risk and that’s really important as, although we’re not a regulated firm, we work in a regulated industry.”

Ensuring security from the outset

That reality put governance front and center, with security shaping the architecture from day one. Smartr365 leveraged Azure security services, alongside Microsoft Defender for Business and Azure Web Application Firewall, to maintain enterprise-grade protection. Having embedded AI into the workflow, the company was able to approach compliance in a more proactive way. “We went from reactive correction to preventative assurance, reducing risk exposure, minimizing rework, and improving confidence across teams,” says Luke Murphy.

The team’s confidence was strengthened by Microsoft’s enterprise-grade AI and security capabilities, providing the compliance, transparency, and reliability required in a regulated financial services environment. As Kidd adds, “We knew that other Microsoft customers were using it at scale for different contexts. We also knew that constant research and development from Microsoft would mean products would be improving all the time—and that benefit would flow through to our customers’ experiences, all without integrating point solutions and creating more work for all involved. That future proofing is the strategic advantage we needed.”

Realizing a more efficient workflow

Those measures worked. Smartr365 were able to create a single, unified, intelligent platform that automates document handling, case imports, and compliance checks, removing friction for brokers who could divert their attention back to their clients more quickly. “Soon, cases moved with less friction and fewer surprises. Brokers were reporting reduced anxiety and increased confidence,” notes Luke Murphy. “That’s when we knew our solution was truly clicking with our customers.”

The numbers told a similar story. Since deploying its AI-powered features, Smartr365 has seen measurable improvements across the broker journey:

• Up to 70% reduction in manual re-keying
• 60% faster broker advice process
• Quicker results with natural language search
• Improved compliance readiness
• Reduced broker frustration
• Increased broker satisfaction

“I’ve had broker feedback along the lines of ‘My God, that has just saved me a boatload of time,’” effuses Macklin. “That’s incredible. We’ve had a lot of ‘wow’ moments—we call them ‘moments of delight’—where brokers have been amazed at what Smartr365 can do. Not to mention how much it’s helped with compliance. Brokers feel more in control of their cases because the information is structured, visible, and continuously checked. They have the assurance they need to be able to say, ‘I feel protected throughout the process.’ It’s been operationally transformative.”