Artificial Intelligence for Insurance: Friend or Foe? - Omidyar Technology Ventures

Over the past five years, we have witnessed substantial startup activity across a broad range of financial services sectors, with fintech funding overall surging from $2.2B in 2011 to $14.4B in 2015 (per CB Insights). Until recently, one of the sub-sectors of financial services that has been somewhat outside of this trend has been property & casualty insurance, which is a multi-trillion global industry and growing. That is now beginning to change as VC investments in insuretech (technology based solutions for insurance) has grown from $130M in 2011 to $1.7B by the end of 2015 (per CB Insights). Building on this momentum, Oliver Wyman sponsored the inaugural InsureTech Connect conference (October 4th – 6th in Las Vegas) bringing together industry incumbents, innovators, and investors to discuss how new technologies -- ranging from big data and online marketplaces to drones and artificial intelligence -- may reshape the insurance industry. At Omidyar Technology Ventures, we are particularly excited about the potential impact of artificial intelligence ("AI") on insurance.