The Power of AI Upskilling in insurance: Skills we need to develop

As the season changes and spring arrives, it brings with it a sense of renewal and rejuvenation. This sense of awakening is mirrored in the emergence of Generative AI in insurance, breathing new life into an industry already familiar with narrow forms of AI. The curiosity and eagerness of employees to embrace these new tools and their dedication to upskilling is exhilarating to see.

While it's true that the insurance industry has experienced fundamental technological advancements in the past, the upskilling required for Generative AI is of a different nature. This technology demands not only the acquisition of new skills for its implementation, maintenance, and utilisation, but also shift in mindset and approach to work.

There is a high demand for specialists and experts who can implement, integrate, maintain, govern and develop AI applications – and, importantly, create the foundation architecture for it to work. Data engineers, AI architects, data scientists, Machine Learning engineers are not just sought after in the insurance industry.

At the same time, AI is changing the roles of technical experts, as we have observed at Swiss Re through our experimentation with code completion and pair programmer tools. These tools offer suggestions for code completion or alternatives and can even write code autonomously. However, the engineer remains in control, with the ability to accept or reject the suggestions. The results have been remarkable, as the tool has already demonstrated productivity increases of up to 20% among our colleagues using it. The time saved can be allocated to increased creativity and to do tasks that often fall to the bottom of the "to do" list, such as mentoring colleagues, learning and knowledge sharing.  

Specialists are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to people who need to have Gen AI skills. While AI can automate certain tasks, a significant portion of its value is derived from its integration into everyday tools, such as emails, document production and meeting admin. This helps us all increase  productivity and enable us to focus on tasks we enjoy and create greater value add.

In this way, Generative AI tools serve as companions to enhance our own capabilities. A comprehensive upskilling and adoption program is essential to ensure we maximise the potential of this technology. Swiss Re's training and awareness activities help ensure that our employees understand the risks, responsibilities, and benefits associated with using Generative AI, including verifying its output, protecting business information and intellectual property rights, and enhancing productivity, efficiency, insights, and creativity.

As well as a focus on compliance and prompting, training also needs to cover employees that will be working with the first business use cases. One of Swiss Re's first pilot use cases of Generative AI is a search and chat functionality to help selected insurance clients navigate our underwriting manual Life Guide.

To effectively work with the new Gen AI tool Life Guide Scout underwriters and business testers involved in its development had to acquire a fundamental understanding of LLM and Gen AI. This includes knowledge of the information required to build the tool, its limitations, and how to monitor and provide feedback for modifications. Additionally, upskilling is necessary for users to become familiar with the tool, understand its construction, and gain confidence in its output.

Over time various roles in the insurance industry will undergo change. Generative AI is the first technology that has disrupted knowledge workers and will change how we all perform our roles whether we are steeped in data analytics or day to day business administration.