The New Robot Threat to Insurance Agents: AI and ChatGPT, Friend or Foe?

In the mid-90s the hype of the internet numbered the days of intermediaries, including insurance agents.

Well, it's 2023 - insurance agents are still here.

But the business has changed and so have consumer expectations and behaviors and they continue to change. Today we are bombarded with hype from a new source: artificial intelligence (AI) and ChatGPT.

AI isn't new, we have been using it for years...

• Photo and video editing,
• Autofill of search results,
• Spelling and grammar correction in Outlook, Microsoft Word and Google Docs

Although your insurance agency isn't likely to be replaced by a robot anytime soon, there is some urgency behind the AI hype.

AI is moving forward quickly and Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and all the major players know it. It will change the nature of search in the not too distant future and is a legitimate threat to Google's long dominance

Is AI ready for prime time? Sort of.

AI will advantage insurance agents who start putting it to work NOW and future-protect those agencies as AI evolves. ...Here's a few ways to do that:

• Writing blog posts and other web copy using: Google Bard, ChatGPT, or Microsoft's Edge Copilot
• Writing emails for email campaigns or standard client communications
• AI Chatbot for website - 40% of consumers expect websites to include a chat option, but most agencies are unable to monitor and respond to live chat
• Learn what your carriers are doing - a treasure trove of possibilities for claim, pricing, coverage and other data analysis

One of the keys to getting good output from AI text generators is in the art of the prompt. A couple of tips to keep in mind:

• Specify the output - do you want bullet points, a table?
• Take an iterative approach, most AI text generators will remember your 'conversation'. That gives you the easy ability to refine your prompts to get better and better output.
• Related to the above bullet points... don't worry about your first prompt being super specific. Generalize a little, see what comes back and refine. Let the robot do the work.

An excellent place to start is to type in the following prompt to Bard, ChatGPT or other text generating AI service:

'In a minute I am going to ask you to write some copy for my insurance agency business. This includes sales, emails, blog posts, Facebook and LinkedIn posts and captions. I want you to ask me 15-20 questions to better understand my customers, my business, my values and my tone of voice'

The AI will suggest content and information from around the web better tailored to your insurance agency. You can use some of this content for follow up prompts to further refine content you will share, as noted above. It's worth the few extra steps.