The impact of data and AI on the insurance industry: a roundtable discussion

Wednesday 19th November saw our data and AI practice host a data in insurance client roundtable in our London office. Greg Kalym, director, and Neil Metcalf, associate director, welcomed 15 senior data leaders from insurance businesses for a discussion on how AI and data are reshaping the industry.

They were joined by guest speakers Hugo Pickford-Wardle, CEO of AI Night School, who discussed the reasons to be optimistic about the future of AI, and Harvi Johal, head of data at WildBrain, who talked about how we can work with AI responsibly. Here’s a summary of the key discussion points from the event.

Relationships can facilitate a successful AI implementation

A lot of the discussion centred around how you actually implement AI into a business when a lot of stakeholders don’t see the value of it. The answer is that you have to build relationships, educate and communicate really well. That’s the only way you can show your people that you have a genuine business case and that AI will help to make their lives easier.

We also spent quite a bit of time discussing the ethics of AI – largely how we implement AI solutions responsibly and how we make it sustainable. This is all about transparency, clear communication, and developing and maintaining AI ethics policies that align with your organisation’s core values.

Don’t neglect the human element. Building trust across the organisation is key to achieving buy-in from your employees and, critically, from the C-suite. AI can be an incredibly valuable tool for a business, but human interaction is essential and neglecting the human in the loop will diminish quality. Consumers are the driver of organisations’ ethical approach to AI.

Can insurance be a disruptor?

Data portfolio heatmaps – data visualisation tools that use colour to represent the performance of different assets in the portfolio – make it easy to quickly identify trends. At the same time, they can help to back up your decision to say ‘no’ to certain projects or tasks. There was a consensus that it will be interesting to see whether insuretech companies will be able to create the same disruptiveness that EasyJet achieved in the aviation sector.

Views from our team: why we need to stay connected

Events like these are key to opening up discussions that might not normally happen amongst a group of senior data leaders. Greg said: “Our wonderful guest speakers provided some interesting insights into the latest trends and obstacles companies are facing in the ever-changing world of AI. We had the pleasure of meeting with a great panel of guests who were incredibly engaging and their contributions made the event a great success. Thanks to all who attended and we look forward to continuing to provide a platform for our clients to engage with their peers.”

Neil added: “Our winter data and AI roundtable event was an extremely insightful and interesting discussion around some of the hot AI topics across the business world right now, with a focus on the insurance sector. The best way to get buy-in from the business and how to practice good AI ethics were the two key talking points and we heard some very real and interesting perspectives on the challenges that everyone faces. Can’t wait for the next one.”

Conclusion: let’s keep the discussion going

A big thank you to our speakers and to everyone who joined us for the discussion. To help increase our understanding of how organisations are utilising AI, we’re conducting a survey of insurance leaders. The results will form the basis of a detailed report which we’ll be releasing in the new year. It would be great to have your input so if you have a few minutes to spare, please complete our survey here.

If you’d like more advice on the impact of data and AI on the insurance industry, are a business looking to hire tech talent or a professional looking for your next tech role, please contact our technology and digital enablement team for an informal conversation.