Busting the myth of ‘insurance is behind on technology’

Chess champion Mangus Carlsen is facing AlphaZero.

AlphaZero is the most powerful artificial intelligence chess player ever created.

It plays itself millions of times over, constantly improving and learning.

When playing it can see into the future, dozens of moves ahead, computing thousands of complex outcomes.

AlphaZero starts in white with the Ware Opening – a pawn opening widely regarded as useless.

Going against every grain of human orthodox thinking on chess held for hundreds of years, AlphaZero then brings out its rook into the middle of the board.

It’s not finished. It then sacrifices the rook for a lesser knight, a cardinal sin at top level chess.

AlphaZero is down on pieces, position and structure. Surely it can’t win against one of the greatest players of all time? But it does.

The bizarre opening and sacrifice is part of a wider ploy to weaken Carlsen’s king, exposing it to an attack dozen of moves later.

“It was like watching God play chess,” said astonished veterans of the game, who had never even dreamed such play was possible.

AI on the rise 

Welcome to the incredible power of artificial intelligence.

If artificial intelligence can do this on a simple chess board, imagine what it can do for insurance firms with their thousands of customers?

Insurance content writers are being asked to write more and more frequently on technology, especially artificial intelligence.

One of the discussion topics we constantly tackle is the idea that insurance companies are laggards on technology. Hamstrung with old legacy systems, they are behind other industries.

Yes, of course there are insurance firms still struggling on tech. But what if the opposite is true? What if insurance firms are, in many important areas, are ahead of the competition?

The evidence is compelling: insurance is becoming one of the most advanced industries in financial services on tech.

Data from the Bank of England on machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence, suggests so.

Insurance is already the fastest adopter of machine learning on the cloud, it found in a survey of UK financial services at the end of last year.

The median number of applications in insurance will increase 163% in three years, bringing it level with banking on machine learning adoption.

This is all good news. Perhaps, finally, insurance is shedding its image as an industry shackled by old technology. Time to look forward, not back. AlphaZero would.