Organizing for Action: The Board of Directors in the AI-Powered Insurer

October 30, 2023 by Michael Fitzgerald

Financial services technologies come and go. Useful shiny objects become standard operating procedure. How quickly and effectively an insurer makes this transition varies. Faster and better yields more business value.

Executive Summary

Banks learned the hard way—with online banking—that setting up separate, standalone organizational structures is an inefficient and costly way of propagating new technologies. SAS Institute's Insurance Industry Advisor Mike Fitzgerald advises insurers not to make the same mistake with AI, urging them to include AI considerations in existing processes.

Here, he offers a logical place to start—the board of directors—outlining some of the changes AI-powered insurers will make to standing committees of their boards to address the opportunities and risks associated with AI.

Executive Summary Banks learned the hard way—with online banking—that setting up separate, standalone organizational structures is an inefficient and costly way of propagating new technologies. SAS Institute’s Insurance Industry Advisor Mike Fitzgerald advises insurers not to make the same mistake with AI, urging them to include AI considerations in existing processes.

Here, he offers a logical place to start—the board of directors—outlining some of the changes AI-powered insurers will make to standing committees of their boards to address the opportunities and risks associated with AI.

Online banking is a classic case. Many banks initially set up their online banking as a separate, standalone unit. This was costly as it required parallel management structures, duplicated existing business processes and localized knowledge about digital banking in a specific group of employees.