Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 16, 2023 23 AI IN CT tion to produce a report. For example, he might ask how many claims the company has received during the last 24 hours in which a car crashed while traveling more than 100 mph. "I would say, 'Can I have the names of each of those customers, the underwriters associated with those customers and the risk engineers associated?'" Campany said. "'And please draft emails to each of those underwriters and ask them to reach out to the agents of those customers and understand what happened, and draft a response for how they're going to mitigate that in the future.'" AI has an uncanny ability to modu- late human style and tone, he added. "I can say to the generative AI, 'Hey, take my PowerPoint presenta- tion with my project status update, convert it into a memo that will be stylized and appropriate for the CEO, and also convert it into an email that will be sent to stakeholders,'" Campany said. "I would never hit send on any of those emails before reviewing them in-depth myself, but if it can save me half an hour, or an hour, that's a step forward." AI departments Insurance call centers are already using AI to predict a caller's demeanor based on the tone of their voice. Upset callers are automatically transferred to customer service repre- sentatives with the highest success rates in dealing with frustrated clients. "(AI) can detect the nice people versus the angry people," said Doug Vargo, who leads the U.S. emerging technologies practice at IT and business consulting firm CGI. "And they will then intelligently route that call to those people that are best at handling that situation." Generative AI goes a step further, as chatbots — trained on large language models and huge corpuses of infor- mation — emulate human responses based on previous interactions. Many large insurers have estab- lished departments dedicated to using generative AI to fuel innovation. Travelers has been steadily increasing its investment in AI, and this year will spend more than $1.5 billion on the technology, said Alan Schnitzer, CEO of Travelers, during a recent earnings call. "Given the competitive advantages that will come from deploying AI across the insurance value chain, and the expertise, resources and data required to get there, scale will increasingly be a differentiator in our industry," Schnitzer said. During the Insurance Capital Summit, Beth Maerz, senior vice president of customer, strategy and innovation at Travelers, said the company wants to use AI to create a frictionless experience for customers that makes them feel safe, secure and respected. "You have to have a frictionless underwriting process in order to ensure great customer experience," Maerz said. "So, first and foremost, one of the ways that we're using artificial intelligence is to really drive change in that experience." AI can pull data — for example, small details about homes — that are critical to segmentation, she said. "It turns out that images are much better at providing us with that data than words, people and databases," Maerz said. "So, we spent quite a bit of time over the last number of years to build out capabilities to use image recognition, using external data sources on images from the sky, to understand things like roof shape." This is helpful to the company and customers, who may not know the type of roof they have, or the risks that come along with it. The Hartford is also in the early stages of developing generative AI systems. While it does not yet have any in production, the excitement "goes all the way up to the C-suite," Campany said during the Insurance Summit event. He said The Hartford is working to set policies that ensure the processes are safe before they're deployed. "We run experiments in a very controlled way before we ever release anything out into the wild," Campany said. Overcoming AI anxiety Andi Campbell, president of Well- Spark Health, a Farmington-based provider of corporate wellness programs and subsidiary of insurer ConnectiCare, said she believes generative AI will become as common- place in the insurance industry as computers, even though there is uncertainty about the transition. Rather than fear the technology, she encourages employees to embrace change because the goal is for AI to help humans. "When people come to me and say things like, 'This is going to displace my job,' I try to help them reframe it to, 'Let's talk about, instead of displacement, how do we consider how to add value in our jobs alongside technology?'" Campbell emphasized that AI is not a substitute for human interaction. "Our customers are coming to us, typically in times of need," she said. "It could be a health claim, it could be a loss of a family member. These are moments of need and distress. So, in that context, we're thinking about innovations and in blending that human touch with the benefits of efficiency that come from the technology."

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