Company
Fair Isaac Corporation, a US analytics software company best known for the FICO credit score, widely used by lenders to assess consumer credit risk.
S&P Global assigned preliminary ratings from B to AAA to an Aven home equity deal underwritten 100% on VantageScore 4.0. One deal built with conservative inputs shows S&P's method works, and the test for other lenders is whether it holds outside HELOCs.
Reality
FHFA gave VantageScore pricing parity with FICO classic, but 5% to 6% of loans in its market use it, per industry data Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyzed. MBA's Bob Broeksmit says the choice cuts borrower costs, while William Raveis Mortgage will stay on FICO until forced.
Reality
FICO will cut about 15% of its staff, roughly 570 jobs, and book $27 million in charges, mostly severance, to fold AI into its products. The cut comes weeks after housing regulators moved to loosen FICO's grip on mortgage scoring, and the timing makes it as much a cost defence as an AI story.
Reality
MIT's Brian Hedden and Manish Raghavan argue that the provable cost of every firm using one hiring algorithm is an echo chamber that curbs exploration. In their models, an ensemble of several screening tools can offset that loss.
Reality
A forthcoming Management Science paper models pay-later as a liquidity lever rather than a payments feature, and finds it moves list prices and stocking levels for every buyer.
Reality
A FICO executive argues the binding constraint on agentic AI is auditability, not capability. The adoption curve is not waiting for the audit trail.
Reality