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AI in Insurance: The Strategic Questions Every Executive Is Asking

Artificial intelligence has quickly become a boardroom topic across the insurance industry. But for many leaders, the challenge isn’t choosing tools or vendors — it’s knowing which questions to ask first.

In the latest episode of Infras Insights, Nelson Lee speaks with Kevin Sharps, a longtime advisor to global insurance organizations, about how senior executives are thinking about AI today — and why this moment feels different from previous technology shifts.

From Tools to Strategy

One of the clearest themes from the discussion is a shift in executive thinking. Instead of focusing on point solutions, leaders are stepping back to ask higher-order questions:

• How does AI change our growth strategy?
  
  
• Where can it meaningfully impact cost structure?
  
  
• How does it reshape competitive dynamics?
  
  
• Are we answering old questions faster — or asking new ones entirely?
  
  

AI isn’t just another software upgrade. It represents a new class of capability that influences what’s possible, not just what’s optimized.

Why AI Feels Different

Unlike earlier technology waves that modernized software, AI has the ability to reason across systems, processes, and data. That distinction matters in an industry defined by scale, regulation, and complexity.

As Kevin notes, this capability allows leaders to think more ambitiously about products, services, and partnerships — without assuming that growth and complexity must move at the same pace.

Making Ambition More Realistic

Historically, launching new products or entering new channels often took years. AI changes that calculus.

When intelligent systems can be applied not only to customer-facing workflows but also to the internal processes that slow organizations down, experimentation becomes more practical and optionality increases. Ambitious ideas feel more achievable.

Elevating Human Work

A recurring theme throughout the episode is that AI’s value isn’t in replacing people, but in elevating them. By handling coordination and repetition, AI allows teams to focus on judgment, experience, and decision-making — areas where human insight matters most.

Episode 1 focuses on how insurance leaders are framing AI today — and why that framing matters.

In Part II, the discussion shifts to how leaders are bringing AI into the enterprise and what that enables across the organization.

🎧 Listen to Episode 1: AI in Insurance, Part I: Strategic Questions Every Executive Is Asking

Watch on Youtube |  Listen on Spotify