Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | August 29, 2022 21 Get hands-on support from Connecticut lending experts. Contact our commercial lending officers for all the personalized support and guidance you need to build your business. Contact our commercial lending officers at liberty-bank.com/commercial-lending Member FDIC Equal Housing Lender. All loans are subject to credit and underwriting approval. 22-LBB-0107_Commercial_Lending_Print_Ad_10w_x_6.75h_HBJ.indd 1 22-LBB-0107_Commercial_Lending_Print_Ad_10w_x_6.75h_HBJ.indd 1 7/20/22 10:15 AM 7/20/22 10:15 AM fully automated machines on their assembly lines to crank out product parts at much higher speeds. Connecticut Chief Manufacturing Officer Paul S. Lavoie said the labor shortage across the country means companies have to be creative. He also said automation provides "upskilling" opportunities to workers. As traditional toolmakers retire, new technologies mean workers will have different skills than in the past. "We're never going to solve the workforce problems with just people, we're gonna have to use technology. So it's never a job-replacement issue, it really is about taking the jobs that we can't find people for and then trying to figure out how we can use automation to handle that workflow," Lavoie said. Insurtech Bourdeaux said automation and AI technology in insurance has "super- charged" the natural growth in that industry. As a result, more insurers are adding mathematicians and computer scientists to their ranks. "Some of the greatest quan- tum-computing thinkers are coming out of Yale right now — those things are going to fundamentally change the insurance industry," Bourdeaux said. "That's a huge shift in what it means to staff that entire industry." InsurTech Hartford Founder Stacey Brown said automa- tion is being adopted in insurance to improve productivity and quality of work. By teaching a robotic process automation software specific steps in an action, like helping a potential customer get quotes for insurance by reviewing their information, "mundane" and slow work can be sped up. "When a human's doing it there's room for error, right? But when a computer does it, … you tend to get less errors in the process," Brown said. Automation is being used to help underwrite insurance policies by collecting client background data. Using tech to free up employees for other tasks that need human interac- tion can be a way to deal with labor shortages, he said. "It's part of how we are solving the problem, but it's not a silver bullet," Brown said. Larson & Toubro Infotech (LTI) is a global technology consulting and digital services company with operations in 33 countries. In April, the firm announced it was opening a new engagement center in downtown Hartford's Boat Building, where it will occupy 13,000 square feet that supports 300 hybrid workers. LTI Insurance Chief Technology Officer Amit Unde said his firm provides automated and AI software services to many insurance compa- nies. He said firms can't compete without adding some sort of new technology to give them an edge. "It's so difficult to attract talent," Unde said. "So the solution that every insurance company is thinking is 'how do I make it easier for my workforce to do their job, help them achieve work-life balance, and make that work more fun and more interesting? One way to do that is to take away all this operational work." Automating processes, like data collection for underwriting, can "take all that grunt work away," Unde said. "You can retain the workforce that you have because you're making their life easier. So automation solves a lot of problems," Unde said. Bourdeaux said the state has a history of innovation, and that can continue with the wider spread adop- tion of AI and automation. "Connecticut is poised on all these fronts to be a leader," Bourdeaux said. "Is it going to be driven because of a labor shortage, though? A labor shortage always produces some creativity, that's for sure." Bauer Inc. employee Sean Budowsky inspects a machine on the Bristol company's shop floor. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Amit Unde Stacey Brown

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