IAG turns to OpenAI Presence for faster disaster claims response

Insurance Australia Group (IAG) will "explore" whether customer-facing voice agent technology by OpenAI can help speed up its responsiveness to weather and disaster related claims.

The insurer has signed on to use OpenAI's new Presence agentic AI platform.

It intends to look into AI agents handling simple, non-event related claims over the phone, so as to free up human claims specialists to deal with more complex cases faster.

"We see an opportunity to use Presence to deploy trusted customer agents that provide timely, reliable support for our customers during moments that matter, particularly during high demand periods such as severe weather events and natural disasters," retail chief executive Julie Batch said in a statement.

“Our initial focus will be on where the need is greatest – high volume natural perils – to ensure
we help our customers the best way we can at a stressful point in their lives."

An IAG spokesperson explained that by using AI agents to help customers lodge simpler, non-event related claims, the insurance giant can reduce call queues and reach others impacted by major events more quickly.

OpenAI Presence is not a new AI model, but tooling built around an existing one.

Presence combines policies, guardrails, simulations and an evaluation system designed to keep an AI agent within boundaries a company sets for it.

Each deployment is scoped to a specific task, such as resolving a billing query or supporting an insurance claim.

The agent receives only the knowledge and system access needed for that job, and hands off to a person when a case falls outside its remit.

OpenAI has been "dogfooding" Presence for its own English-language phone support, and claimed it resolves 75 percent of inbound issues without human assistance.

A Codex-powered improvement cycle cut human handoffs on the support line by 15 percentage points in 10 days, OpenAI said.

IAG is looking to implement Presence in the first half of its 2027 financial year, which runs from July to December 2026., the spokesperson said.

Presence deployments are led by OpenAI's own forward deployed engineers or selected systems integrators.

IAG's engagement with OpenAI has so far centred on solution design, rather than live deployment, the insurer said.

The insurer has been exploring the potential of advanced AI voice technologies for some time, the spokesperson told iTnews.

While the OpenAI partnership is at early stages, IAG sees it as a long-term opportunity, the spokesperson added.

IAG one of three launch customers worldwide

The insurer is one of three launch customers for OpenAI Presence, which was officially announced on July 23 Australian time.

Spanish multinational banking concern Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) is another.

It intends to explore AI-powered voice support for everyday banking needs in the Mexican market, while Japan's SoftBank is testing natural-sounding customer conversations with the Presence platform.

Presence is in a limited general availability program currently, and isn't yet offered as a self-serve product by OpenAI.