ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

OPPORTUNITY AND 

CHALLENGES

Sharad Sachdev

Artificial Intelligence and 

Insurance Analytics Lead 

North America

Jim Bramblet

P&C and Digital Lead

North America Insurance

1
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 2

2

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE....HMM

2

MY TRAVEL

MY HOME

MY MOVIES

MY INVESTMENTS

MY HEALTH

MY LOVE

MY CAREER

MY FRIENDS

MY MUSIC
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 3

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

OPPORTUNITY AND CHALLENGE

AIIS 

GOING TO 

IMPACT YOUR 

BUSINESS. 

YOU NEED TO 

DECIDE HOW YOU 

WILL ADAPT. 

DO

DIFFERENT

THINGS

AND

REDEFINE YOUR 

BUSINESS

REDEFINE BEST IN CLASS 

IN THE MARKET

DO

THINGS

DIFFERENTLY
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 4

NEW BUSINESS MODELS

LIFE SCIENCES

GREATER ACCURACY IN 

GENOME SEQUENCING USING 

DEEP LEARNING

80%

Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved.

CONTENT TITLE RETHINKING CORE OPERATIONS

10% 

INCREASED YIELD (SAME LAND) 

PAPER AND PULP MANUFACTURING 

Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 5
Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved.

CONTENT TITLE OPTIMIZING BACK OFFICE:

OIL AND GAS

VIRTUAL AGENT TO 

HANDLE INVOICE 

INQUIRIES FOR 

FINANCE & 

ACCOUNTING 

PROCURE-TO-PAY 

PROCESSING. 

Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 6
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 7

AI IN INSURANCE.... 

WEARABLES 

WITH AI FOR 

HUMAN SAFETY

ABIe – THE 

INTELLIGENT 

ASSISTANT

AI-BASED 

UNDERWRITING

ROBOTS 

SELLING LIFE 

INSURANCE

AI-BASED 

CLAIMS 

HANDLING
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 8

QUICK POLL

PLEASE TEXT FACI TO 22333 ONCE TO JOIN, THEN TEXT A, B OR C TO RESPOND 

FOR THE BELOW QUESTION

Q.1 How comfortable would you be in taking Insurance-related

advise from an AI-based Robot instead of a Human Agent?

A. Prefer AI-based Robot

B. Prefer Human Agent

C. Indifferent
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 9

PROJECTED IMPACT OF AI
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 10

ACCENTURE RESEARCH

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: THE FUTURE OF 

GROWTH 

Intelligent 

Automation

Labor and Capital 

Augmentation

Innovation 

Diffusion

3 GROWTH ACCELERATORS: 
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 11

QUICK POLL

PLEASE TEXT FACI TO 22333 ONCE TO JOIN, THEN TEXT A, B, C OR D TO 

RESPOND FOR THE BELOW QUESTION

Q.2 How much incremental growth impact do you believe

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have on Insurance industry in North

America in the next 5 years

A. Highly Positive

B. Negligible

C. Highly Negative

D. Uncertain
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 12

AI (MACHINE LEARNING) USAGE IN INSURANCE

19%

27%

17%

30%

6%

Investigating

Piloting or experimenting

Used in one business process

Used in more than one business process

Used across the value chain

INSURERS USING ML WHICH PROCESSES

18%

22% 22% 24%

29% 30% 31% 32% 34% 35% 36% 37% 38%

1%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

SOURCE: Accenture Study on Machine Learning Enabled Processes (2017) 
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 13

AI-BASED PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

None Less than 2X 2X to 4X 5X to 10X More than 10X

Insurance (Commercial) Insurance (Life & Disability)

Insurance (Property & Casualty) All Industries

SOURCE: Accenture Study on Machine Learning Enabled Processes (2017) 
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 14

WITH AI, 

GREAT 

OPPORTUNITY 

PRESENTS 

EVEN 

GREATER 

RESPONSIBILITY.

Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 14
Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved.

CONTENT TITLE

GOVERNMENT

Is AI being deployed for 

“Societal Good” OR “Job 

Loss”?

BUSINESS

AI’s possible “unintended 

consequences” like Brand 

and PR impact?

REGULATORS

Is AI compliant with 

regulations like GDPR?

LEADERS WANT TO KNOW

Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 15
16

RESPONSIBLE AI WILL ENABLE AI TO FLOURISH

Governance, 

accountability

Stewardship, 

reskilling

Honesty, 

transparency, 

fairness

Security

ESTABLISH TRUST

RESPONSIBLE AI 

DRIVERS

Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved.

CONTENT TITLE

Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 17

• Why did you do that? 

• Why not something else?

• How do I correct an error? 

• How do you unlearn?

Prediction 

Accuracy

Explainability

Machine learning techniques today 

Neural Nets

Statistical

Models

Ensemble

Methods

Decision

Trees

Deep

Learning

SVMs

AOGs

Bayesian

Belief Nets

Markov 

Models

HBNs

MLNs

SRL

CRFs

Random

Forests

Graphical

Models

Limitations of Machine Learning – Blackbox / Opaqueness 

CHALLENGES WITH AI
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 18

QUICK POLL

PLEASE TEXT FACI TO 22333 ONCE TO JOIN, THEN TEXT A, B OR C TO RESPOND 

FOR THE BELOW QUESTION

Q.3 Many AI systems operate as "Black Box". For key decisions

(e.g. pricing/underwriting) if you had to pick between "Superior

AI-based decisions" and "Transparency of Decision-making

criteria", what would you pick?

A. Superior Decisioning

B. Transparency/Explanability

C. Uncertain
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 19

RESPONSIBLE AI FOR INSURANCE: SELECT 

CONSIDERATIONS

PRICING FOR PAST OR PREDICTED FUTURE

TELEMATICS/IOT/WEARABLES – SAFETY VS PRIVACY

INHERENT BIAS – HUMAN VS AI-ADVISOR

AI-BASED CLAIMS HANDLING – LOWER COST VS TRANSPARENCY

RISK TRANSFER/COVERAGE CONTRACT – WHO IS LIABLE

HUMANS LIVING WITH ROBOTS/AI – WHO WILL INSURE WHO?
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 20

FROM TO

Human-to-Robot | Robot-to-Robot

Human - Robot - Human

WITH RESPONSIBLE AI, WHAT COULD 

TOMORROW LOOK LIKE?

Predictive

Lifeblood for Enterprise 

Right to Explanation

Human to Human

Reactive

Ancillary

Right to Information

INTERACTION

PRIVACY

COMPLIANCE

DATA

AI FEARED AI ARCHITECTED WITH VALUE 

SYSTEM

REGULATION Policy Construct & Price Broad Advocacy across Eco-Systems
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 21

QUICK POLL

PLEASE TEXT FACI TO 22333 ONCE TO JOIN, THEN TEXT A, B, C OR D TO 

RESPOND FOR THE BELOW QUESTION

Q.4 Do you believe that solving for "Black Box" nature of AI, to

create more value from AI, is something that is better addressed

by the following:

A. Individual Insurance Companies

B. Industry Consortium

C. Regulators (with inputs from Insurance Companies)

D. Outside the Insurance Industry Ecosystem (e.g. Academia)
Copyright © 2017 Accenture All rights reserved. 22

THANK

YOU