Artificial Intelligence: From Mystery to Mastery

Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands to disrupt industries on fundamental levels – from business model to value chain. The numbers are obvious: deals to AI startups enabling computers to mimic human intelligence and decision behavior increased 4.6x, from 150 in 2012 to 698 in 2016. 

However, few industries rely on AI’s foundation – data – as profoundly as the insurance industry, making AI mastery a key competitive differentiator in the future of intelligent insurance. To leap from AI mystery to mastery, practitioners need to bridge the gap in understanding the technology’s inner workings and its business value proposition. Identifying feasible and valuable applications of Artificial Intelligence is hence the most essential task faced by insurance leaders today.

Main recommendations of the report:

• Think Use Case instead of Technology. Almost 40% of all practitioners who have not yet invested in AI don’t know what AI can be used for in their business. In order to exploit relevant opportunities to develop an intelligent insurance, practitioners must face the challenge of identifying concrete applications for AI in the form of use cases.
• Identify the right Use Cases to leverage AI in your business. The study outlines a framework of four value areas in which AI creates business value. Use our specific Use Case Formula derived from almost 200 AI applications to provide the essential groundwork to structure and guide the thinking and identification of relevant use cases.
• Insurers have yet to unlock the full potential of AI. By mapping prominent insurance case studies to our framework, the study confirms that the majority of applications realized by incumbents today focus on optimizing existing services and processes. These efforts are already yielding tangible benefits. However, insurers are lagging behind in leveraging AI to discover new insights in operations and customer interactions. In order to uncover the possibilities, we are describing leading case studies from other industries and shares recommendations on where to look next.