In 1950, Alan Turing asked a wonderfully weird question:
"Can machines think?"
Not "Can machines solve math problems?" or "Can machines compute faster than humans?"
Those were already givens. Turing wanted to know something deeper. Something unsettling. Could a machine act so human that we wouldn't know it wasn't?
His proposed test was simple: Have a conversation with someone behind a screen. If you can't tell whether it's a person or a machine, the machine passes. The Turing Test was born.
Now here we are, more than 70 years later, with AI writing poems, beating humans at Go, and giving startup founders existential dread. So it's time for a new version of the question, one which the founders of WealthSmyth set out to answer:
Can an AI imitate—and eventually outperform—a top licensed life insurance producer?
And no, we're not talking about filling out a form or sending a follow-up email. We're talking about the whole enchilada:
- Finding the client
- Building trust
- Understanding complex financial needs
- Navigating regulations
- Recommending a solution
- Closing the deal
- And doing it better than the best human could.
Sound crazy? Maybe. But here's why life insurance just might be the ultimate Turing Test.
Act I: Why Life Insurance Is Such a Beast
Let's start with a fun fact: Life insurance and annuities are some of the most human-dependent financial products on earth. Why? Because they're weird.
They involve:
- Long time horizons (think decades)
- Deep personal decisions (family, health, legacy)
- A maze of carrier rules, state regulations, and suitability requirements
- And a distribution system that's still powered by notepads (the kind you write on), whiteboards, and—yes—fax machines
So unlike travel agents or mortgage brokers, life insurance agents can't just be friendly and organized. They have to:
- Understand behavioral finance
- Know how to simplify complexity
- Follow strict compliance protocols
- Match clients to the right products across multiple carriers
- AND make the client feel heard and supported along the way
It's sales, psychology, and legal compliance… all rolled into one.
Which is why if AI can do this, it's not just a narrow tool anymore. It's something more.
Act II: Narrow vs. General vs. Super Smart Machines
To put this in context, let's zoom out and talk about the AI hierarchy:
- Narrow AI – This is most of what we use today. It's great at specific tasks. ChatGPT can write an email. Your CRM can assign a follow-up. Spotify knows when you're about to cry and queues up Bon Iver.
- General AI – This would be an AI that can do anything a human can do. Understand context. Learn new tasks. Adapt. Reason. Flirt (yikes). OpenAI Operator is starting to do this, and others are closer every day.
- Superintelligent AI – Smarter than all of us. Together. Please unplug it if it starts talking about nanobots.
Most sales tech lives in Category 1. But actually selling life insurance and annuities—especially the way humans do it—demands something closer to Category 2. It's relational, strategic, and adaptive.
You're not just responding to questions. You're guiding a 35-year-old single mom who just lost her job, taking her through a conversation about estate planning, financial security, and what happens if she dies next week. That's not just math. That's trust.
Act III: Why Sales (Yes, Sales) Might Be the Holy Grail for AI
Ask an AI researcher what the "holy grail" of general-purpose AI might be, and they'll usually say something like scientific discovery or autonomous robotics. But here's a contrarian idea: A truly general AI needs to be good at sales.
Sales isn't formulas and forecasts. It's:
- Timing
- Emotional nuance
- Navigating ambiguity
- Persuasion
- And—especially in insurance—compliance
It's one of the few jobs where success can't be brute-forced. You can't just A/B test your way to a $1 million annuity close.
That's why life insurance might be the most honest test of AI's human-like potential. It's not about logic. It's about trust.
Act IV: Why Life and Annuities Is the Perfect Proving Ground
Why start here?
Because life insurance is:
- Massive ($3.6 trillion market)
- Fragmented (millions of agents; thousands of distributors, carriers, and intermediaries)
- High-margin (over $100 billion in annual commissions)
- Still analog (you'd be amazed how many policies are sold with paper apps)
- And regulated (no rogue AI cowboys allowed)
Here's the twist: Unlike other industries, life and annuity sales legally require a human agent on every transaction—and in the U.S., that means state-by-state licensing. No two states are exactly the same, and every agent has a "bag of providers" they're contracted with and a personal playbook they've built over time.
At the federal level, SEC's Regulation Best Interest ("Reg BI") was designed to elevate consumer protection. But in practice? Most agents still recommend the products they know and the ones they're compensated to sell. It's not malicious—it's structural.
Want better outcomes for clients?
Don't just tweak the incentives. Change the system.
Imagine a future where:
- Agents are still involved (and accountable),
- But every one of them is required to use an AI assistant that understands all available products across all carriers,
- And every recommendation is benchmarked against a fiduciary-grade best-interest standard—not just what the agent knows.
We don't just meet Reg BI. We transcend it.
This is the real opportunity with AI—not just to replicate what top agents do, but to raise the floor for everyone.
In short: life and annuities are just hard enough to be a meaningful benchmark but just structured enough to be solvable.
The industry is moving toward AI that sells like a top producer—across channels, products, client profiles, and compliance frameworks.
Not just a copilot. Not just an assistant. A producer.
And the goal?
Pass the Turing Test for life and annuities distribution.
Final Act: What Comes Next
If AI can't pass this test, then we still need human agents. And that's fine—many of them are incredible at what they do.
But if it can?
Then everything changes:
- Commissions get restructured
- Roles evolve
- Compliance frameworks adapt
- And distribution becomes digital-first at the core
But before that happens, we need to answer one big question:
Can AI truly become a producer—not just an assistant?
That's what we'll explore in Part 2: How the industry is already moving through three major phases—copilot, autopilot, and autonomous agent—and what it means for the future of life insurance.
Spoiler: it's happening faster than most people think.
