AI for InsurTech: A Risky Business?

Every New Year brings with it a host of predictions of how our world will change in the next 12 months. For 34 staff at Japanese life insurer Fukoki Mutual Life, recent forecasts that 2017 would be a big year for artificial intelligence (AI) doubtless now seem particularly prescient. Replaced by a Watson-based AI solution for the payment of claims, its hard not to think these unfortunate employees will prove to be the canaries in the mine for many more financial services workers with replicable skills. Whether hysteria or truth, there is a palpable sense that AI is gaining momentum right now. So too is the conception that technology is moving from enabler to destroyer of jobs, livelihoods, even society itself.