Bora Arslan is the Chief Data and Analytics Officer of IAG, an insurance company where he is working on improving aspects such as customer experience, personalization, and pricing through Machine Learning and AI.
In this interview, Mr. Arslan shares insights on how technologies such as Conversational AI can bring massive changes and improvements to an industry such as insurance which relies traditionally on a great deal of human interaction.
Mr. Arslan is also a speaker at the AI for Business Summit 2019 on September 17-19th in Sydney.
What is your background and your role at IAG?
I am the Chief Analytics Officer for IAG. Analytics, Data, Data Science is what I’ve done all my adult life.
Where do you see the biggest potential of applying AI in the insurance industry in the coming years? Which trends do you think are the most significant?
I guess the biggest promise is to provide excellent customer experiences with intelligent customer interactions. Insurance has been a very human guided operation relying heavily on human to human interactions. But this is starting to change with the advancements in AI, particularly voice, image, and NLP.
Even though I am PhD-ed mathematician and data scientist, I came to realisation over the years that culture and people skills are what makes AI and Analytics shine.
What are the biggest challenges faced by the insurance industry today? Can AI be leveraged to solve or mitigate these challenges?
Conventional large insurers, and any other large organisation who especially grew through acquisitions are sitting on multiple and often disconnected legacy systems. Creating a unified and connected view of data generated by these legacy systems is often a big challenge. Especially coupled with attempts to place futuristic technologies such as AI that are supported by this integrated data.
You will be one of the speakers at the AI for Business Summit. What will your speech be about?
My presentation emphasises the importance of people and culture in order to successfully deliver an AI project. Even though I am PhD-ed mathematician and data scientist, I came to realisation over the years that culture and people skills are what makes AI and Analytics shine.
What is your opinion of applying Chatbots & Conversational AI in insurance? What could be the benefits?
The benefit is bettered customer experience, which is the main goal. Some views these technologies as a replacement to human to human interactions. I view these as an augmentation to improve the quality of our services.
Which AI-related technology (Chatbots, Deep learning, Computer Vision, Robotics etc.) is the most impactful in insurance, and will be in the future?
There are clear use cases in insurance for each of these technologies. But I am especially impressed with companies that turn voice into a new digital channel with the help of AI.
Most insurers were not born digital, traditional mindsets and conventional ways of working are often counter to what’s needed for scaled AI.
How can insurance companies leverage AI & Analytics to make their customers happier and more satisfied?
It’s really all about better understanding your customer needs and wants, and relevantly serving customers to meet these needs and wants in a timely and effective fashion. And AI definitely has that promise.
How can insurance companies prepare for the changes in the industry brought by AI technology?
By focusing on the necessary cultural shift to be able to best infusion of these technologies to their processes. Most insurers were not born digital, traditional mindsets and conventional ways of working are often counter to what’s needed for scaled AI.
Mr. Arslan’s talk
Sep 17th at 14:00
EMBRACING THE AI JOURNEY AND THE PATH TO OPERATIONALISATION
- Understand the concept of AI Maturity and the Gartner Model
- Learn about the continuum of AI readiness and how it can be applied to your own context
- Hear about the strategies being applied on the way to making AI a part of the business DNA
