Successful deployment of AI requires a careful balance between visionary optimism and cautious pragmatism. As insurance executives plan their AI investments, here are some best practices that will help to ensure successful business outcomes:

Start with a list of your biggest challenges, then identify a path to solving them, one step at a time. Think beyond innovation and experimentation. Engage with stakeholders throughout your organization with the aim of identifying specific problems and operationalizing AI to achieve tangible benefits in the near term.
Assess the opportunity for solving those challenges by reengineering (not necessarily replacing) existing business processes to incorporate AI. Map various AI technologies against those challenges. Aim at augmenting human intelligence — not replacing it.
Assess your organization's capacity to adopt and integrate AI, including fundamental competencies in AI technology, data access and data quality, change management, and willingness among the target users to adopt proposed solutions.
Get senior management involved … but at the right time. AI is strategic, and the C-suite needs to be informed and involved. They can bring vision, energy and support to your AI initiatives, provided that you engage them at the appropriate stage in the process. If senior management is involved too early, they could specify new initiatives that are ill-suited to AI. Early C-suite involvement can also frequently lead to inflated expectations. A better approach is to bring well-considered proposals that multidisciplinary teams at ground level have fleshed out.
Make this a cross-functional exercise. Develop AI project teams that incorporate a range of perspectives and skillsets and don't limit it to a single team. By creating multiple groups, each with its own dynamic and operational focus, your organization will benefit from a greater diversity of ideas.
Start an AI-related education and skills program now. Even though you may not be sure yet of your specific needs for retraining and reskilling, begin to make education offerings available now that will help your workers adapt to future changes. Such programs will pay dividends down the road, giving your organization a head start in the change management process.

As you evaluate technology, plan your pilot rollout, and eventually operationalize AI within your company, here are some additional factors that will contribute to your success:

Before the pilot starts, set a timetable and criteria for deciding whether to go into production. This will add rigor to the decision-making process and put pilot project advocates on notice that implementation is an important consideration from the very beginning.
Adopt technologies that can scale and that can be used by your intended audience. If, for example, a chatbot is ill-suited to serve your customers as a primary channel, don't adopt it with the vague hope that it will improve substantially in the near future.
Get your data in order. AI relies on high-quality data, and it benefits from a holistic view of information enabled by integration. Assess your organization's ability to unify and harmonize your data and to ensure its accuracy, consistency and completeness.
Make sure AI can interface well with your existing systems. Select initiatives to prioritize needs to consider "the last mile" of implementation. Get your IT teams involved early so they have a hand in creating a feasible solution.

Finally, it's important to be flexible and transparent and to manage expectations proactively. Some pilots will prove to be impracticable fairly early in the process. That's to be expected, but stakeholders should understand that AI pilot projects are like a portfolio of investments; some will succeed while others will not. AI isn't the answer to every problem, but insurers who neglect to get on board will be eclipsed by those who do. Be willing to learn from successes and failures and apply that knowledge to your future endeavors.

Special Reports /

Striking the perfect balance: How insurers need to think about AI

Related Stories

Recommended For You