The speedy adopters span regulated industries like health care, life sciences, financial services, insurance and manufacturing—a shock even for someone as plugged into the world of AI as Wood, Amazon Web Services’ global vice-president of AI products.
“If you’d have told me a year and a half ago that 160-year-old life insurance companies were going to be in the vanguard of artificial intelligence usage, I probably would have been a bit surprised, but that’s turning out to be the case,” Wood said, referencing Sun Life Financial Inc. in an interview, fresh off a visit to Toronto for the Collision tech conference.
His observation turns age-old assumptions about innovation and who is open to embracing technology upside down. It comes as nearly every sector is grappling with advances in AI and considering how the technology can increase productivity and profitability.
How different industries are using AI
Wood has recently seen life insurance companies turn to AI to review 90-year-old policies and identity risks they could pose over the next decade or so when they are likely to be paid out.
Doctors have also adopted the technology, using it to transcribe exchanges with patients and cobble together appointment summaries that are so accurate, blind-testing has shown health-care providers would choose them over human-crafted summaries seven out of 10 times.
Wood suspects regulated sectors have moved faster than others on AI for a few reasons.
The first stems from the trove of data at their fingertips.
Many regulated companies are sitting on extensive databases, market research and development reports, clinical trial results and patient and insurance records that hold a lot of potential because the organizations are privately held.
