23 Increasingly, emerging technologies are underpinning InsurTech solutions Over half of applicants to this year’s program employed emerging technol- Of the emerging technologies we have seen, we look at four in more detail ogies such as AI or the internet of things (IoT) compared to 40% last year, here: an increase of 13% percentage points. I. Artificial intelligence Moreover, in certain categories, emerging technologies are playing an even II. Robotics more important role. Two-thirds of applicants with businesses based on III. Internet of Things underwriting and risk management are deploying an emerging technology IV. Blockchain – such technologies clearly have the potential to drive change at the very core of the insurance operating model. This is an important trend. While InsurTechs are naturally keen to be un- I. Artificial intelligence derstood for the commercial value they could drive rather than the intri- Artificial intelligence (AI) in particular has caught the attention of the In- cacies of their primary technology, the large numbers of start-ups making surTech scene this year. Roberta Profeta of Intesa Sanpaolo is particularly compelling use cases for emerging technologies means the broader indus- excited by the potential of AI. “It’s something I’m looking forward to seeing try must get to grips with such tools. Aerobotics, an aerial data analytics applied more and more. The potential impact is enormous and multifold company and member of SBC InsurTech’s 2017 cohort, is one such exam- with a range of applications, from text mining to scouring obscure archives ple. It uses drones to capture high resolution imagery of farms and then for apparently missing bits of a policy or claim, to boosting telematics and applies machine learning to provide insight into crop health to farmers. It telesensing to proper predictive analytics, catastrophe modelling and be- now aims to deliver an agricultural insurance product that benefits both yond.” farmer and insurer, all year round.