Insurers that are heavily dependent on traditional business models have struggled over the past year with financial strain. But automation presents an opportunity to establish short-term successes to speed up recovery and long-term results that can stimulate growth by accelerating digital transformation. Customer expectations are at an all-time high as digital-native brands like Amazon continue to dominate and set standards that are difficult for other companies to copy. These standards don't only appear in business-to-consumer transactions but also in business-to-business transactions that include promoting product innovation and mix. Insurers strive to deliver high-quality customer experience, but there is still a gap between what customers expect and what insurers are delivering – especially when it comes to being available at all hours and on all channels.

When automation is a core technology, transformation can occur at speed, meaning faster return on digital investment. Insurers that are heavily dependent on traditional business models have struggled over the past year with financial strain. But automation presents an opportunity to establish short-term successes to speed up recovery and long-term results that can stimulate growth by accelerating digital transformation. Customer expectations are at an all-time high as digital-native brands like Amazon continue to dominate and set standards that are difficult for other companies to copy. These standards don't only appear in business-to-consumer transactions but also in business-to-business transactions that include promoting product innovation and mix.

Insurance CIOs are continually exploring the potential applications of AI, which resonate with their business needs. FREMONT, CA: Artificial intelligence (AI) is proliferating, and its ability to explore massive data sets and extract significant insights from them makes it an essential technology in the current market space. Thus, it isn't a surprise that insurance firms are also keen to utilize AI. Sources suggest that CIOs in the insurance sector will continue investing in AI technology to drive growth, revenue, streamline business operations and serve the customers and distribution partners in a better way. However, the main consideration lies in figuring out how AI can best address their business requirements.

INSURERS have seen many changes in recent years, including new competition, the emergence of insurtechs, and shifting consumer demands for new products and/or services. Digital is the most common top business priority for insurance CIOs in 2018 and 2019, according to Gartner's 2019 CIO Agenda for the insurance industry. For the first time, this has moved to the top of the list, outranking revenue and business growth in focus. "The industry continues to transform as companies begin to embrace more advanced stages of digital maturity," said Gartner Managing VP Juergen Weiss in an exclusive interview with Tech Wire Asia. This journey includes improving customer experiences, building out ecosystems, establishing enterprise intelligence through improved data and analytics, and adopting an open innovation platform that relies more on ecosystem partners.

Each year members of our Gartner insurance team speak with hundreds of clients. Our team also tracks public announcements of IT initiatives by the world's largest insurers. Three major themes have emerged. First, InsurTechs continue to be top of mind for insurance CIOs. However there has been a noticeable shift in focus.

Insurance companies normally place artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and big data into individual buckets. Yet, chief information officers should invest in all three at once, according to new research from Novarica, as they are equally dependent on each other for best results. In an executive brief, "Big data, IoT and AI Maturity levels," the consulting firm argues that while AI is the next stage of advanced analytics decision making, big data and IoT--in the form of sensors, drones and wearables--feed machine learning platforms the information needed to help insurers make smarter claims and underwriting decisions. "All three of these emerging technologies are tightly intertwined. In fact, it's difficult to recognize the future value of one without the others," said Jeff Goldberg, SVP of research and consulting at Novarica, the study's author.