The people who will shape the future of the U.S. life insurance industry are spending more time thinking about robots.
Thousands of industry actuaries, marketing executives and technology strategists are converging in Chicago today for the 2018 Life Insurance Conference — the latest edition of an annual conference series that started in 2003.
Event organizers scheduled no breakout sessions on robots or artificial intelligence in 2015 or 2016.
They scheduled one breakout session on artificial intelligence and the Internet of things in 2017.
This year, organizers have put three sessions on robots on the agenda, along with one session on artificial intelligence.
One of the sessions on robots will also cover artificial intelligence: Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, an analyst from Gartner, will talk Tuesday about how life insurers are already planning, and implementing, robotic process automation projects.