‘AI will bring huge productivity improvements’: Swiss Re CEO

CEO Swiss Re, 'AI will bring huge productivity improvements' Keystone-SDA

Swiss Re CEO Andreas Berger has told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper that artificial intelligence (AI) will radically change the nature of work.

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“Thanks to AI agents we will see productivity improvements such as we have not seen in decades,” the head of the Swiss reinsurance giant said in an interview. “We are in the process of rethinking our company’s core processes from the ground up with the help of AI.”

Berger gave a concrete example: in the construction insurance business, pricing used to take up to three weeks with 25 steps and 14 applications. “With AI agents we have greatly simplified this process and reduced the number of applications to less than five. Today we can determine a price partly already within one day. The increase in productivity is up to 80%,” he said.

But the goal is not to reduce staff, he added. “The time freed up for our employees can be used for their real work: handling more claims, closing new business and helping customers increase their resilience.”

As for AI-related risks, Berger says he is cautious but not alarmist. “Innovation and science do not frighten me, as long as it is implemented responsibly,” he said. “At Swiss Re we take great care that people are not relieved of responsibility: in the end it is the person who decides.”

Palantir connection

Berger believes that many companies have fragmented IT infrastructures: “Data integrity and quality are a central issue. Without reliable data, AI mainly creates additional complexity, costs and frustration.”

On the cyber risk front, Berger confirms that the potential damage of artificial intelligence is enormous. “In worst-case scenarios they are so great that a single company cannot sustain them. That is why today the insured damage is limited. But we are discussing collaborations with the public sector to increase coverage.”

Berger defends the decision to partner with Palantir, a United States company specialising in big data analysis at the centre of controversy. “We have strict governance processes in choosing our partners and our collaboration with Palantir is clearly focused on defined use cases,” he said. “We can say in good conscience that our use case is guaranteed by clear rules.”

“If you find another supplier with comparable capabilities, let me know. Developing such systems takes a lot of time and is very expensive. But I will gladly allow myself to be convinced otherwise,” he added.

Adapted from Italian by AI/mga

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