Using AI to assist rather than replace your workforce

Fears of artificial intelligence (AI) replacing human workers is a common sentiment in the insurance industry and other sectors, but one firm is focusing on how AI can augment its processes rather than take them away.

“We ask how AI can play a role in any project that we launched, whether it’s a large-scale project or tiny project,” says Sébastien Mc Mahon, chief strategist, senior economist, portfolio manager and vice president of asset allocation at iA Global Asset Management (iAGAM). “We need to ask ourselves the question, ‘What can I do with AI here?’”

iA has teams drumming up ideas to integrate AI into “any kind of process,” Mc Mahon says. For example, “help for call centres — having an AI listen in to a conversation and being your wingman rather than completely replacing the person on the call.”

AI can also be used to listen in to investment conversations and opine on any blind spots due to groupthink, Mc Mahon says during KPMG’s 2025 Insurance Conference last week.

“We like to call it augmented intelligence rather than artificial intelligence for now,” he says. “At some point, likely the artificial part will kick in, but now it’s more augmented.”

iA is also using language models to create custom indicators about how sell-side research (from big banks and big research firms, for example) evolves over time. “Who should we pay more attention to, in which kind of environment?” Mc Mahon asks. “These are language models, so they’re good with inferring from language. They’re pretty good [at] dealing with this data, the algorithms that we have now.”

For Co-operators, the insurer has put its data in the cloud and created digital solutions for its clients, particularly on the property and casualty side of the business, reports Mary-Jane Jackson, the insurer’s vice president of enterprise transformation. “A lot of our business historically was through our advisor offices, and so we needed some digital solutions to be able to ensure we’re meeting clients where they need to be met.”

Co-operators has a ‘steering committee’ of sorts to look at and approve any AI applications, Jackson reports. It’s currently looking at opportunities to take written data and translate it into health forms and documentation, among other uses.

Regulatory impacts

The impacts of AI continue to evolve, and regulators have been trying to address emerging technologies for years. For example, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario offers a regulatory ‘sandbox’ that allows the industry to test out new ideas, concepts and innovations.

Mc Mahon suggests the industry try to get ahead of AI by working with regulators proactively.

“One bold move could be to make sure that there’s an industry front; just move to the forefront of the AI adoption by working right away with the regulator,” he says. This would accelerate innovation, adoption of the technology, while maintaining governance and consumer protection.

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“You can build a sandbox,” he says. “The industry works with your regulator [to] try to tackle everything upfront by including all of those aspects, rather than having things that are decentralized and then having the regulator having to juggle all of these balls.

“That would be a smart thing to do as an industry; to be at the forefront.”

Jason Contant

Jason has been an award-winning journalist with Canadian Underwriter for more than a decade, including the past three years as associate editor and, before that, as digital editor for seven years.