The rise of the insurance chatbot

A recent survey by TCS finds the insurance industry outspent the other twelve verticals surveyed, investing on average $124 million in AI systems, compared to a cross-industry average of $70 million. (Photo: Shutterstock)

The chatbot is on the rise.

You need only look at the celebrity status Amazon’s Alexa achieved this year as a top Super Bowl ad to understand this. So ascendant is the humble chatbot that some retail industry pundits are describing 2018 as the year of AI and voice technology. Will that be also true for insurance? How warm is the embrace by insurers, agents and their customers?

To be clear, it’s not like the insurance industry is a laggard in this arena. Chatbots and AI are on the screen of most insurers. In fact, a recent survey by TCS finds the insurance industry outspent the other twelve verticals surveyed, investing on average $124 million in AI systems, compared to a cross-industry average of $70 million. More investment and more diverse applications are on the immediate horizon.