Earlier this summer, Datos Insights hosted the 2023 Silicon Valley Innovation Tour. Sixteen insurance technology leaders attended the event in San Francisco and the Bay Area where they visited Salesforce, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CyberCube, Plug and Play Tech Center, Avanta Ventures, and Matroid, Inc.
Throughout the four-day event, participating insurance executives and their teams were introduced to many of the underlying concepts which help fuel meaningful innovation. They were also introduced to key players in the ecosystem that supports successful insuretech and fintech companies. Conversations throughout the week focused on fostering a culture of innovation, uses for artificial intelligence (AI), and partnering with insuretech startups to gain access to emerging technology, among other topics.
Fostering a Culture of Innovation
A major takeaway from this event is that innovation is not simply the responsibility of one person or team within an organization. Innovation thrives when everyone is encouraged to think outside the box, feels that their voice is being heard and respected, and knows innovative ideas will be supported. For example, the team at AWS shared their mechanisms, architecture, and organizational structure to support innovative thinking across the organization.
Uses for AI in Insurance
Interest in AI continues to grow, and more industries and enterprises are looking for ways to adopt AI and machine learning (ML) processes. Challenges to AI adoption will continue to drive innovative activity at startups and insuretech companies to help enterprises increase their adoption. Insurance executives visited with several insuretech firms, such as Matroid, Inc., where they learned about use cases for AI in insurance, including in compliance, underwriting, claims, marketing, and others.
Partnering with Insuretech Companies
For insurance carriers, partnering with insuretech firms is a way to incorporate emerging technologies into key business processes. Insuretech companies are raising the bar on customer experience, efficiency, and the usage of analytics to drive processes. Insurers have many options for engaging with insuretech companies, including partnerships, direct investment, and seeding startups, all of which come with varying levels of risk. Committing to doing things differently as a company will often come with the risk of failing. Willingness to take risks and a lack of fear of failure were major themes among the startup culture in Silicon Valley.
For more information on the key learnings from the Silicon Valley Innovation Tour, contact Carey Geaglone or John Keddy. To learn more about insuretech companies active within the insurance ecosystem, read Stephanie Dalwin’s latest edition of Insuretech for Insurers: A Guide to 300 Startups.
