How the industry can take advantage of artificial intelligence

Brokerages who use artificial intelligence could find opportunities to upsell based on changes in a client's lifestyle, according to a software vendor executive. The more data you feed a machine learning model and the more you train it, the better it gets, said Kevin Deveau, managing director of FICO Canada, part of San Jose, Calif.-based Fair Isaac Corp., in a recent interview. Artificial intelligence (AI) is when technology mimics human cognition such as learning from experience, identifying patterns and deriving insights, said Mark Breading, a partner with Boston-based Strategy Meets Action. Machine learning is a type of AI in which computers act without being explicitly programmed, SAS Institute Inc. notes. Bigger brokerages with enough money to invest in AI and machine learning could use those technologies to build a "360-degree view" of a customer, said Deveau, in the context of how the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing companies to change the way they operate.