Opinion How AI opens up new avenues for insurers | Digital Insurance

"While there is much speculation that artificial intelligence (AI) will put many people out of work, the real story may be more nuanced" according to Joe McKendrick, author, consultant, blogger and frequent Digital Insurance contributor specializing in information technology. 

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For the insurance business, this may actually mean more instances of humans and machines working together, augmenting each other’s skills and insights.

Human + Machine:
Reimagining Work in
the Age of AI

This means more strategic roles for humans, the optimists say. In their new book, Human + Machine, Paul Daugherty and H. James Wilson, both with Accenture, state that we are entering an era in which machines are taking over much of the grunt work associated with tasks, elevating the roles of humans to adopt more strategic roles. “AI technology will do what it does best – sifting through and processing copious data to recommend certain actions; and humans doing what they do best – exercising their judgment and social skills to help customers purchase products that better fit their needs...

Daugherty and Wilson point to the following ways in which AI could benefit insurance companies:

• More customer-aware operations. Businesses will be employing AI to provide customer personalization – automatically recognizing customers and pulling up presences and transaction histories.
• Super salespeople. “From automatically sending perfectly composed via a digital assistant to cleverly and quickly organizing sales data, AI is offloading some of the major time sinks of sales teams.”
• Brand strengthening. “When AI performs the job of customer interaction, the software can become a primary way for a company to distinguish itself from competitors. In these scenarios, AI ceases being simply a technological tool; it becomes the face of the brand, just as Alexa is now becoming the face of Amazon’s brand.”
• New job opportunities. As AI systems became more advanced, they will require increasing levels of training. For instance, bots like Siri and Alexa already need considerable training by humans to display the appropriate amount of empathy when a customer is frustrated, angry or anxious. Executives need to pay attention to the skills to ensure that they have the employees they need to perform that training.”

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Source: Digital Insurance