Upping the ante with AI—what agents should do now

Upping the ante with AI—what agents should do now

By Vic Yeh, CEO, Cara

AI is a practical tool that’s already reshaping how agencies operate. It’s one of the most important technological changes in our industry. The goal of AI in insurance is not to replace people, but to augment your teams, giving you more leverage to spend time with clients.

Every agency I talk to says the same thing: there’s no shortage of clients to serve or opportunities to chase, but there’s a shortage of time and resources. Agents, account executives, and CSRs are buried in back-office repetitive work, including coverage analysis, ACORD and certificate generation, answering customer questions, inputting data into agency management systems or CRMs, and endless email threads. That backlog takes away from what actually grows the business: building relationships and delivering quality coverage.

AI is an emerging technology that can potentially change everything about back-office workflows. The AI powered by large language models really only became mainstream in November 2022, popularized by ChatGPT, and it’s improving rapidly. We’ve never seen technology advance at this pace before.

Think about AI as an assistant that works 24/7 if set up properly. AI can:

• Service: It can draft responses to routine emails, fill out ACORD forms, generate COIs, handle customer calls with Voice AI, triage customer inquiries, and cross-check coverage forms.
• Sales: It can compare coverages, prepare quote proposals for clients, and make sure your agents demonstrate stronger domain expertise.
• Operations: It can integrate with your existing tech stack — AMS or CRM — to automate data entry and reduce human errors.

The real power isn’t in any one task, but in combining many tasks into augmented workflows. When applied successfully to your agency’s existing processes, AI gives staff back hours every week so they can focus on higher-leverage work and client relationships. 

Agencies and brokerages that embrace AI are already seeing measurable impact. Account executives can now prepare renewal proposals in minutes instead of hours. Producers spend more time in front of clients instead of on back-office tasks like filling out forms or comparing coverages. And staff feel less overwhelmed because the repetitive, low-value tasks are taken off their plate.

The takeaway is this: AI is no longer experimental — it’s here now. Agencies that lean in early are gaining a real advantage. The key question is: how are you adapting AI into today’s workflows to make it work for your teams and clients? We’re excited to see how AI evolves in the coming decade and to collaborate in ensuring AI is beneficial to insurance.