Suncorp creates a "clear execution roadmap" for agentic AI

Suncorp has commenced “full-scale delivery” of agentic AI into its operations, predicting it will allow the insurer to “completely re-imagine” customer service and claims lodgement processes in the first instance.

Suncorp CIO Adam Bennett.

The insurer’s CIO Adam Bennett, who labelled the move as the “acceleration of (Suncorp's) ambition and adoption” of agentic AI, said it was “perhaps the most material development” in the AI space in a year.

The ability of AI to “plan, apply judgement, and most importantly, act autonomously because it’s been given agency”, has encouraged Suncorp to scope potential uses from across its operations.

“We can completely re-imagine our customer experiences and end-to-end processes in every part of the organisation,” Bennett said.

“Our initial focus for deployment of Agentic AI is in claims and customer service, which is of course where we see the largest value pools. 

“However, this by no means limits its broader potential”.

Bennett said the insurance group had just wrapped up what he called an “in-depth ideation phase” – presumably collecting candidate use cases for the technology – and had moved into “full-scale delivery, having developed a clear execution roadmap with cross-functional representation from every part of the organisation, as well as further investing and uplifting our core technology capabilities.”

“Our initial efforts will target simple customer service interactions through voice and chat, as well as automated claims lodgement and assessment across consumer, commercial and personal injury,” he said.

AI driving operational transformation

Bennett backed AI more broadly as a key enabler of “operational transformation” – a concept which has the backing of Suncorp's chief executive Steve Johnston.

“This is about becoming a seamless, digital-first insurer, enabling us to reduce our cost-to-serve and provide our customers with superior sales, service, and claims experiences,” Bennett said.

While noting that “digitisation, automation, partnering and artificial intelligence” all had roles to play, he said that “AI is where we see the greatest transformational opportunities over the next horizon”.

The company has already set up an “enterprise-wide governance model to monitor [its] AI settings and policies, and a structured prioritisation framework to drive alignment and ensure that we’re accelerating the highest-impact AI initiatives,” Bennett said.

It is also training staff both in how to use AI and to prepare them to adapt “to the uncertain but clear future era of AI”.

Bennett also called out the insurer’s technology deployments, including its embrace of “enterprise AI utilities” like Microsoft Copilot, its use of native AI that is embedded in core platforms and its use of SunGPT – its own internally-managed platform – for “more proprietary use cases”.

The insurer has taken a keen interest in the value generated by any AI usage and has been keen to measure it.

Bennett cited an example of AI use in issuing commercial motor fleet insurance quotes, saying it halved turnaround times and allowed for an increased volume of quotes to be processed.

Suncorp has also “just gone live” with a smart product disclosure statement (PDS) “utility”.

The insurer first flagged doing this back in 2019, at the time using technologies from the IBM Watson suite.

“Our Smart PDS utility is enabling our home claims teams to answer product disclosure statement related questions faster and with improved consistency and accuracy,” Bennett said.

“While we’ve only just gone live, we’re anticipating a 50 percent reduction in referrals to the support teams for these types of coverage and PDS enquiries, and we would then expect a 25 percent reduction in the average handle time for these types of [inbound support] calls. 

“Those benefits are predicated on what we see in some of the other use cases that are already at scale”.