AI Articles and Analysis in Finance

This article was originally written as part of an in-depth AI report sponsored by Iron Mountain, and was written, edited and published in alignment with our transparent Emerj sponsored content guidelines. Learn more about our thought leadership and content creation services on our Thought Leadership Services page.

Although it's clear that AI is only beginning to make its way into the insurance sector, Accenture estimates that big investments in AI could increase the annual profitability of insurers by 20%.

In their recent Worldwide Spending on Cognitive and Artificial Intelligence Systems report, IDC estimated that banking investments in cognitive and AI systems in 2018 might total around $4.0 billion. Many AI vendors claim to offer software for numerous finance use cases, such as credit scoring, insurance underwriting, debt collection, fraud detection, and more recently, financial regulations, or so-called regtech.

International Data Corporation (IDC) reported in their  Worldwide Semiannual Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide that global investment in big data and business analytics (BDA) will grow from $130.1 billion in 2016 to more than $203 billion in 2020. In a previous report, we covered machine learning in the finance sector, and in this report, we dive deeper into big data solutions and data management platforms for financial institutions. The companies in this report all claim to help financial institutions with at least one of the following:

KPMG estimated the size of the automotive insurance is expected to shrink by 70% due to the rise in demand for autonomous cars and the shift in liability then being placed on the car manufacturer. With the rise of AI in most sectors, it follows that AI would find its way into the automotive insurance world. AI may allow car insurance companies to keep up with an evolving consumer base that is looking for faster service, faster payouts, and policy prices tailored to them.

Robotic process automation, or RPA, is a technology used across multiple industries to automate business processes. RPA software involves what are known as "software robots" to handle repetitive tasks traditionally handled by human employees. That said, there are no actual robots involved in the way one might see in manufacturing or heavy industry.

In the past few decades, insurance companies have collected vast amounts of data relevant to their business processes, customers, claims, and so on. This data can be unstructured in the form of PDFs, text documents, images, and videos, or structured, organized and curated for big data analytics.

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) have introduced new financial and accounting standards which require financial institutions to compile all their lease agreements and accounting reports electronically. These new standards may require significant changes to a financial institution's lease and contract management processes.