In this month's interview, with Sivan Iram, founder and CEO of insurtech Capitola, he offered up a striking image of how agents and brokers can use AI: as a little angel sitting on their shoulders, whispering wisdom.
At a time when we're all being bombarded with predictions about the future of generative AI and being lectured about how to start using it, I like that simple image: an angel sitting on my shoulder.
Iram backed up that image with one of the more trenchant summaries that I've seen of the arc that AI has followed and that has brought us to this breakthrough moment.
He said a key difference between generative AI and what preceded it is that the latest form doesn't just have a brain; it also has a mouth. You can talk to it, and it'll talk back.
He also said the AI's brain has taken a leap forward. He said the first generation of AI could extract information from documents by recognizing characters, the second by recognizing words. Now, in the third generation, Iram says, the AI can search based on meaning -- it doesn't have to see the word "premium" in a document to infer that that's what's being discussed, for instance.
The generative AI can not only extract information from formal documents but can monitor and learn from the interactions between brokers and underwriters and between brokers and clients. The AI can also now easily supplement the information from internal sources by pulling in publicly available information, such as on a firm's revenue history.
Meanwhile, the AI is assembling the wisdom that it will start whispering in your ear -- and will keep getting smarter as it pulls in more information. Iram focused on risk appetite as an area where the new version of AI can provide valuable advice. He says carriers currently communicate their risk appetite but do it in an analog, rather ad hoc way. He says AI can track all the current signals and augment them based on email traffic, then help a broker efficiently find a market to place the risk.
He obviously hopes you develop your AI aspirations alongside Capitola, which provides a digital marketplace where brokers work with carriers to place risks in small commercial lines. But, whatever route you take, he provides some real insight. I hope you'll give the interview a read.
Cheers,
Paul
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