The damage from pandemic-induced lockdowns, office and school closures and consumer retrenchment continue to reverberate through the economy. As the crisis drags into its seventh month, it has left businesses facing hard choices in adjusting to what now seems like many permanent changes. Required actions to address the COVID-19 crisis can be divided into three major stages: Respond, Recover and Thrive. These three stages are interspersed with two additional interim stages, and culminate in a long-term operating environment we call the'next normal'. The early months were focused on business survival through a series of reactionary changes, which was followed by mid-term operational stabilization in a world with diminished demand, continued socio-political restrictions and unpredictable events.

Insurance AI will help insurers predict risk with greater accuracy, customise products and use enhanced foresight to rapidly deploy new products. It is driving efficiencies in underwriting and risk monitoring to give insurers a competitive edge, particularly in commoditised markets. AI is being used to evaluate claims, creating workflows that are more accurate and responsive to customer needs. It is augmenting the capabilities of new and existing distribution channels, allowing insurers to expand their reach and scale. AI allows institutions to be more agile, enabling them to deploy new products in response to emerging risk. It allows insurers to make use of their internal data and provide unique service offerings that complement their product shelves.

From cost center to profit center: Institutions will turn AI-enabled back-office operations into external services, both accelerating the rate at which these capabilities improve and necessitating others to become consumers of those capabilities to avoid falling behind A new battlefield for customer loyalty: As past methods of differentiation erode, AI presents an opportunity for institutions to escape a "race to the bottom" in price competition by introducing new ways to distinguish themselves to customers Self-driving finance: Future customer experiences will be centered around AI, which automates much of customers' financial lives and improves their financial outcomes Collective solutions for shared problems: Collaborative solutions built on shared datasets will radically increase the accuracy, timeliness, and performance of non-competitive functions, creating mutual efficiencies in operations and improving the safety of the financial system Bifurcation of market structure: As AI ...

This report is the culmination of one year's worth of research, including over 200 interviews with subject matter experts and seven global workshops, prepared by the World Economic Forum, and the full report can be downloaded here.