Your team is already using AI. The question isn’t whether to allow it. It’s whether anyone is steering.
That was the core message of our recent AI webinar for insurance brokers, and it applies just as much across financial services. AI adoption in most firms isn’t waiting for a strategy. It’s happening informally, in browser tabs and personal accounts, one helpful shortcut at a time.
The biggest risk isn’t AI. It’s ungoverned AI use.
Two ways to come off the road
When firms get AI wrong, they usually fail in one of two directions.
Ban it and hope
Leadership says no. Staff use it anyway, on their phones and personal logins, with client data and no oversight. The ban doesn’t remove the risk. It just hides it.
Let it run
Everyone has a tool, nobody owns the rules. Data goes wherever the prompt takes it, and AI quietly starts influencing decisions no one signed off on.
Both feel safer than they are. Doing nothing is still a decision, and right now it usually carries more risk, not less.
Where AI earns its keep today
Done properly, AI can take real load off a brokerage without adding compliance exposure:
- Inbox and renewals: summarising insurer updates and pulling out the actions.
- Meetings: automated notes, file notes and follow-ups.
- Policy review: faster comparisons, with a human still making the call.
The blockers are rarely technical
When adoption stalls or feels uncomfortable, it’s almost never the technology. It’s messy data and unclear permissions. It’s no consistent training, so everyone prompts differently and gets different results. And it’s no clear AI policy, especially across offshore teams, where the gaps tend to be widest.
Three foundations that keep you on the road
- Data governanceClear boundaries on what AI can and can’t access, set before it goes looking.
- Policy and accountabilityDefined ownership whenever AI influences a decision, so there’s always a person who answers for it.
- User enablementRepeatable workflows, training and guardrails, so good use becomes the default and not the exception.
Get those right and AI does what it’s best at: working as a back-office assistant that supports broker judgement, cuts admin and makes the work more consistent. Not replacing the people who know your clients. Freeing them up.
We don’t have all the answers. Nobody does. But we know how to keep you on the road.
Where is your firm on the road? From 19 October, our CEO Natalia Scheidegger is mapping the AI maturity road for broking and financial services, one stage a week. Follow along, or talk to us now.