Recently, Shuidi Company's first digital employee "Helping" has experienced a deep upgrade in underlying technology.
Shen Peng, founder, chairman, and CEO of Shuidi Company, introduced to the New Beijing News that in September 2022, the "Help" intelligent dialogue robot was officially launched, which can be applied in multiple scenarios such as insurance consulting, customer operation, online marketing, renewal, risk identification, and claims services.
It is reported that previously, "Bangbang" mainly undertook repetitive and labor-intensive work in the insurance service process. Now, the upgraded AI insurance broker assistant "Bangbang" version 1.0 has been tested internally. Shen Peng introduced that "Help" can now undertake more complex tasks in the sales planning process, such as family risk warning and personalized insurance product recommendations. In this way, it can help insurance brokers complete their work tasks more efficiently and with higher quality.
A report released by global management consulting firm McKinsey&Company in 2018 predicts that with the support of artificial intelligence, insurance will become more deeply involved in people's daily lives by 2030, such as choosing travel routes (which will affect premiums and claims), and handling claims at traffic accident sites.
▲ The digital employees of Shuidi Company have the ability to provide "help" services. Schematic diagram/provided by respondents
What is "gang"
The head of AI at Shuidi Company stated that the application of digital employees is an exploration to promote the digital transformation of insurance services, help the industry reduce costs and increase efficiency, and turn the "technological power" of insurance into "productivity".
Shen Peng introduced that "Bangbang" is an innovative attempt in insurance technology that combines AI, big model technology, and water droplet business scenarios.
In 2023, based on the breakthrough of ShuishuuGPT, a major model in the insurance field of Shuidi Company, "Help" has experienced a deep upgrade of underlying technology and a significant improvement in business capabilities. As of now, Shuidi Company has applied for dozens of technology patents in the field of AI, and recently has successively obtained multiple large model technology patents.
The "Water Drop Water Conservation Model" was independently developed by Water Drop Company and has been tested internally for several months. "Shuishou" is a name derived from other large models, representing the meaning that Shuidi hopes to use AI technology to protect the health of every user. Compared to the relatively general response of the general model, the "Water Drop Water Conservation Model" can provide insurance brokers and users with more professional, accurate, and easy to understand suggestions, and bring deep empowerment and efficiency to the entire insurance service chain.
Helping can effectively reduce costs and help improve efficiency. Schematic diagram/provided by respondents
The application of digital employee assistance has significantly improved the service speed of Shuidi Insurance (an insurance brokerage platform under Shuidi Company), reduced costs, and unleashed employee capabilities. "Help" can release about 30% of service manpower for online operations; In the claims process, it can help the insurance company improve efficiency by 24.9%; In terms of intelligent risk control, it can provide 24-hour uninterrupted monitoring and early warning services.
The emergence of "Gang" has also been recognized by peers.
Wang Haofan, Business Manager of China People's Health Insurance Co., Ltd., told the New Beijing News that the first digital employee "Help" launched by Shuidi Company is a remarkable phenomenon, reflecting the innovative application of artificial intelligence technology in the field of enterprise services. From the perspective of technological innovation, the launch of "Bangbang" demonstrates the progress of Shuidi Company in artificial intelligence technology, especially in natural language processing and dialogue systems, which helps to enhance the company's market competitiveness.
Wang Haofan stated that from the perspective of service level and cost management, by introducing "help", Shuidi Company can provide customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, answering user questions in real-time, improving service efficiency and user experience; Meanwhile, digital employees only need to process multiple customer requests at lower costs, which helps to reduce service costs and improve operational efficiency.
But Wang Haofan also emphasized that the launch of "Bangbang" is an important attempt of artificial intelligence technology in the field of enterprise services, which brings both opportunities and challenges. How to balance the relationship between technological progress, user experience, and social impact will be a question that Shuidi Company and other peer enterprises need to continuously explore.
Shen Peng believes that with the widespread application and continuous development of large model technology, Shuidi Company will continue to be committed to technological innovation and service upgrading, providing more high-quality and convenient insurance products and services for insurance customers. At the same time, we will also explore more innovative applications with partners both inside and outside the industry, promoting the digital and intelligent development of the insurance industry.
Digitalization of insurance is an inevitable trend
"Digital insurance is an inevitable trend in the development of the insurance industry," said Shen Peng. This trend has been further strengthened with the promotion of technologies such as large models.
Zheng Gongcheng, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and a professor at Renmin University of China, told the New Beijing News that any industry is now advancing towards digitalization. Whoever achieves digital transformation first will grasp the momentum of production and operation development. Because digitalization has had a comprehensive and profound impact on our production, lifestyle, and social governance, the insurance industry is no exception.
The digital transformation of the insurance industry has also received support from national policies. In January 2022, the General Office of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the Guiding Opinions on the Digital Transformation of the Banking and Insurance Industry, which clearly proposed to promote high-quality development of the banking and insurance industry through digital transformation, build a new pattern of digital finance that adapts to modern economic development, continuously improve the ability and level of financial services to the real economy, and effectively prevent and resolve financial risks.
Wang Haofan stated that from a technical perspective, the ability to process and analyze standardization using GPT like large models, as well as some non standardized data that is difficult to process in daily life, can expand the capability boundaries of insurance companies. Although these changes may seem insignificant, they may bring new market opportunities.
In terms of enhancing regulatory and compliance capabilities, Wang Haofan introduced that in the past, regulation has been able to monitor transactions and data through automated systems in the process of digitization. However, with the faster launch of terms and products, it has also posed challenges to regulatory manpower. Now, with the help of the language ability and command compliance ability of large models, it is possible to better automate the monitoring of insurance company terms and contracts, improve processing efficiency, and ensure that the company complies with relevant regulations, thereby improving operational transparency.
"Overall, digital insurance is not only a trend, but has become a reality for the development of the insurance industry," said Shen Peng. Insurance practitioners need to actively embrace this change and achieve long-term value in the benign competition of insurance technology.
The McKinsey report reveals that the underlying technologies of artificial intelligence have begun to be applied to businesses, households, vehicles, and the general public. The four core technological trends driven by artificial intelligence will reshape the insurance industry in the next decade.
Zheng Gongcheng also reminded that digital technology plays a more important role as a tool and means, and the essence of the insurance industry still needs to be grasped: firstly, credibility, because insurance buys credit, which is the credit behind the paper bought by customers. This is the core proposition of the insurance industry.
Secondly, the insurance industry should have its own core competitiveness. The core competitiveness is risk management capability. For example, property insurance companies need to have disaster prevention and control capabilities; Life insurance companies need to have strong control capabilities for accidents and various sudden disease risks. This is the core competitiveness of the insurance industry.
"Just like motor vehicle insurance, we don't necessarily need to get compensation after a car accident, but we pay the insurance premium and receive corresponding services such as risk control guidance," Zheng Gongcheng said.
In other words, the risk management capability of insurance companies is to be able to more conveniently transmit the knowledge and skills of risk management services to the public, especially the insured, which is mutually beneficial. "If the insurance industry 'plugs in' digitalization, it can be seen as a pair of 'wings' for the insurance industry."
Digitalization may revolutionize the insurance industry
Zheng Gongcheng believes that although big model technology is a tool and a means, it is also very important. Technology is crucial for promoting and cultivating insurance knowledge and awareness. As insured and insured, digitalization is also indispensable; Similarly, for insurance operators, the same applies.
Shuidi Insurance, a subsidiary of Shuidi Company, is mainly an insurance brokerage company, also known as an insurance intermediary company. It is more important to understand the needs of insurance customers, provide good advice for insurance customers, and effectively connect insurance customers and insurance companies, which greatly helps to improve the efficiency of Shuidi's business. Zheng Gongcheng said.
Shen Peng stated that Shuidi Company always pays attention to cutting-edge technology, and its R&D team began to focus on dialogue robot technology and applications around 2019, forming a team that understands both insurance and AI. Through investment and application of technologies such as big data and AI big models, Shuidi Company has achieved online, process oriented, and intelligent insurance value chain, accumulating a large amount of data and experience.
"The benefits of insurance technology to consumers are tangible," said Shen Peng. From the perspective of insurance supply, in the past, due to factors such as lack of user data and complex underwriting, there was a certain gap in the supply of insurance products for segmented groups such as mother and baby groups, silver haired groups, and patients on the market.
In recent years, Shuidi has continued to increase investment in scientific and technological innovation to promote innovation on the supply side of insurance products. The United Insurance Company has jointly developed a number of innovative products to meet the diversified security needs of different groups, including "the industry's first maternal and infant insurance covering the whole process of gestation", "the industry's first Internet long-term serious disease insurance with three highs and three nodules that can be insured and compensated", and "the first domestic medical insurance with millions of overseas innovative therapies such as boron neutron therapy" The industry's first outpatient insurance that can also be paid by community hospitals and township hospitals.
In addition, insurance technology can accelerate the insurance service process and enhance customer experience. Taking the claims process that customers are most concerned about as an example, the deep application of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology greatly simplifies the online claims process for users.
According to data from Shuidi Intelligent Claims, in 2023, the average efficiency improvement of the entire process of Shuidi's "assistance claims" was 36.75%, and the average closing time for simple cases was reduced to 2.3 hours. The one-time pass rate of claims materials reached 97.25%, helping insurance companies improve efficiency by 24.92%.
From the perspective of industry transformation, Wang Haofan believes that the transformation of the insurance industry by artificial intelligence, big data, and big model technology will also be reflected in two aspects. Firstly, it brings new opportunities for non-standard (insurance) products. In terms of non-standard products, insurance companies will be able to more easily unleash their resources. With the excellent explanatory power of language models, insurance companies can enable the model to interpret and inquire about complex clauses in a very detailed manner based on the customer's language understanding, thereby reducing the difficulty of selling non-standard products in the market.
Meanwhile, "the talent structure in the industry will also undergo changes," said Wang Haofan. Insurance companies need more talents who are familiar with data analysis, machine learning, natural language processing, and risk management to use relevant tools. The intermediary agencies and operational links that are most directly impacted in the industrial chain will actively recruit relevant talents, thereby shifting from the previous heavy manpower state to a small number of people and machines serving a similar population. This is also in line with the current trend of reducing marketing and operational costs.
Water droplets have become a case of digital reform.
Shen Peng introduced that in recent years, Shuidi Insurance has relied on insurance technology capabilities such as big data and AI to continuously improve efficiency in insurance product development and intelligent risk control. At the same time, we will also explore more innovative applications with partners both inside and outside the industry, promoting the digital and intelligent development of the insurance industry.
New Beijing News reporter Xiao Longping