How Cloud Enables Companies to Harness the Power of AI

Innovative technologies are essential in remaining competitive in the rapidly evolving insurance industry. Cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) are among the transformative forces reshaping the way insurance companies operate. In the UK and the US, Cloud has been a leading force for some time, whilst several insurers in Germany have taken tentative steps towards the cloud this year. For all markets though, cloud-powered AI is gaining momentum.

This article explores the pivotal role of cloud in reshaping the insurance sector, how it empowers insurers to harness the capabilities of AI and the opportunities and challenges associated with this transformative synergy.

Unlocking the Power of Cloud

Cloud providers around the world offer an array of AI capabilities that have the potential to enhance efficiency, speed, and accuracy in insurance business operations. The union of cloud and AI brings forth a multitude of opportunities for the insurance industry.

One of the most promising prospects lies in automating claims processing and underwriting. By integrating AI into their systems, insurers can streamline these traditionally complex processes, resulting in increased efficiency, faster decision-making, and lower fault rate Ultimately, this enhances customer satisfaction due to faster claim processing and reduces operational costs across the board.

Overcoming Data and Document Challenges

Harnessing the benefits of AI in the cloud does come with challenges. Insurers globally often grapple with structuring data and extracting meaningful insights from documents. Fortunately, cloud-based infrastructure provides an effective solution. Modern AI tools have advanced well beyond basic optical character recognition (OCR) services.

These AI tools offer a more comprehensive approach to document analysis, making sense of documents within their contextual framework. This holistic interpretation of documents dramatically improves processing efficiency and the level of automation. The process of data ingestion, making unstructured data structured from various sources into a cloud-based repository, becomes streamlined and efficient.

Wide Range of AI Services in the Cloud

Cloud providers offer a diverse range of in-house AI services, catering to the specific needs of insurers worldwide. These services include image and video analysis, text and document extraction, natural language processing, translations, chatbots, detection of data anomalies, fraud detection, automated process monitoring, and quality control of sensitive data.

Choosing the Right AI Solutions

Selecting the right AI solutions is crucial for insurers. Most cloud providers offer pre-existing APIs to facilitate seamless integration. Depending on individual requirements, some AI solutions might be ready to use, while others allow for customisation to build tailor-cut solutions.

Cloud Over On-Premise Solutions

While some insurers may contemplate hosting AI solutions on-premise or in a private cloud, it's essential to consider the drawbacks carefully. Dedicated hardware, scalability limitations, and increased maintenance costs often make on-premise solutions less favourable, but first of all, building your own AI tool internally requires a lot of time and effort and is associated with a high risk of failure. Public clouds, on the other hand, provide flexibility, and scalability that can adapt to changing compute resource needs. Ultimately, it is better to rely on a cloud provider with an already provided out-of-the-box solution, rather than a costly, risky on-premise one.

Conclusion

Cloud is an enabler to utilise AI in insurance processes, making AI tools finally available and reliable which allows for increased efficiency, automation, and customer satisfaction. However, when selecting and implementing AI services in the cloud, it is important to make informed decisions.

Assess your company's specific needs, consider the drawbacks of on-premise solutions and choose the approach that best fits your goals.

Dominik Kamiński , Head of Cloud at Sollers Consulting