There has been much put forth about artificial intelligence, better known as “AI.” So much so that the fear is that we will become obsequious servants to the technology that is supposed to serve us. There is also the lemming-like fear that AI is coming for our jobs.
With this in mind, the IMCA/AM Best Insurance Marketing Leader Lunch webinar held on August 2 was a timely opportunity to learn from marketing pros about how they are using AI in their organizations to better serve their companies’ needs. The theme of the Lunch and Learn webinar was how to use AI’s capabilities to efficiently achieve objectives that previously were done differently or were not even possible.
The panel did not disappoint! Anne Ellis, VP of marketing at Crum & Forster, Kasey Connors, VP of marketing operations at Trusted Choice, and Mitch Dunford, chief marketing officer at the Risk and Insurance Education Alliance, provided their perspectives and actual use cases. From the start it was clear that AI is rapidly being used in many productive ways, changing how the marketing function is being aided by AI.
For instance, Kasey discussed how Trusted Choice generates a lot of content for independent agents, which creates challenges. By smartly using AI, efficiencies have been created by repurposing and leveraging content across multiple platforms, starting with long-form blog posts and turning them into quick ideas for social graphics and social media. Trusted Choice also uses AI by linking YouTube videos to Gemini (Google’s generative AI), creating an outline that can be used for a blog post or social media channels.
Dunford added that the new AI tools being rolled out for insurance marketers remind him of the early days of the internet. When it exploded on the scene, users were not ready or sure of how exactly to use it. Fast-forwarding to today, The Risk and Insurance Education Alliance created “AlliBot,” allowing their participants and students to learn and leverage the power of AI for use in insurance companies and agencies in a variety of ways.
Dunford also referenced other AI tools in the marketplace, such as arkrisk.io, which allows for insurance policy and Certificates of Insurance comparisons using AI. Another tool he mentioned was riverside.fm, which records, edits, and transcribes content using keywords. It then provides takeaways, titles and chapters, even allowing the audio file to be edited with AI.
Ellis shared how Crum & Forster has organizationally embraced AI by building their own version of ChatGPT, called “Genie.” She answered the key question of why they built it internally. The impetus to do so was their concern that when ChatGPT is used, proprietary information can be accessed externally. To negate that possibility and to encourage broad use, Genie’s content stays behind its IT firewall and can’t be accessed outside the organization.
To encourage broad use of Genie by staff, training videos were created to speed adoption. The result is that managers' use is freeing up the marketing staff’s time. They were sometimes used as a backstop to help generate internal communications that are now performed by the employee with the aid of Genie.
These examples represent just a few of the use cases. Despite the naysayers, the evolution of AI is accelerating as insurance marketers explore more applications in their organizations. Don’t be left on the sidelines!