Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini, have rapidly become established across the business world, and insurance is no different. An EY study found that 99% of insurance companies are already investing in generative AI or are planning to invest.
Nonetheless, in many ways, the technology is still in the experimentation stage, and big question marks remain over best practice in a highly regulated industry such as insurance. Numerous genAI companies have emerged over recent years and new models are being released all the time. Keeping up with developments, along with ethical, security, and data privacy concerns is a full-time job in itself.
One of the biggest developments for insurance companies was the launch of business or enterprise versions of the most popular generative AI tools; ChatGPT Enterprise launched by Open AI in August 2023 and Gemini for Google Workspace in February 2024. Designed for the more complex needs of business customers, here we answer a common question asked by businesses: Is Chat GPT Enterprise or Gemini for Google Workspace better for insurance companies?
Use cases for ChatGPT Enterprise and Gemini in insurance
ChatGPT and Gemini are essentially chatbots, which use genAI and natural language processing (NLP) to analyse huge volumes of text and data almost instantly, based on user questions and prompts. As a result, they can provide a huge productivity boost to humans when carrying out a range of tasks spanning research, content creation, and data analysis.
The business and enterprise versions of these tools are based on the same underlying technology as the consumer models but have added security, privacy, and functionality built in. This makes them more attractive to businesses to use to streamline a whole variety of tasks. In the insurance context, there are a whole variety of use cases, such as:
- Responding to customer queries: Gemini or ChatGPT-based chatbots can be used to respond to simple customer queries, or by customer representatives to help draft emails or summarise information.
- Underwriting policies: GenAI tools can spot patterns in data, help underwriters make better decisions on risk and pricing, or even automate the most straightforward quotes.
- Processing claims: These tools can also help streamline the claims process by automating the initial claims review, calculating losses, flagging potential fraud, and updating customers on progress.
- General policy management and admin: Additionally, ChatGPT and Gemini can minimise the time insurance professionals spend searching through documents to find the information they need and completing other basic administrative tasks, freeing them up to focus on higher-value tasks.
There is significant scope for efficiency and productivity gains when using ChatGPT and Google Gemini in insurance, however, companies must also consider the risks. Next, we’ll review the pros and cons of each tool individually, and what aspects insurance companies need to think about before adoption.
Gemini for Google Workspace: Pros and cons for insurance companies
Integration and Ecosystem: The major benefit of Gemini over ChatGPT is that it is deeply integrated with Google Workspace applications including Gmail, Docs, and Slides. For insurance companies already utilising Google Workspace, this integration can enhance productivity by automating tasks such as drafting emails, generating reports, and analysing data within familiar tools. It also has connectivity with other Google products such as Maps, which could be beneficial for pinpointing customer or property locations. Insurance-specific functionality can also be integrated through GoogleCloud.
Functionality: Google launched Gemini 2.0 in December, saying it is “more capable at reasoning, following instructions, coding, and creative collaboration.” At the time of writing, Gemini offered a wider feature set than ChatGPT, including impressive multimodal capabilities, such as image and audio generation and analysis. This feature can be beneficial for processing and interpreting visual data, such as assessing images for claims processing, and analysing voice calls. Originally considered unreliable for data analysis, recent reports suggest that Gemini’s capabilities and accuracy are steadily improving.
Data Security and Privacy: Gemini operates within Google’s secure environment, ensuring interactions remain within the organisation. Prompts and generated content are stored alongside existing Workspace content and are not used for model training or human review. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t data risks due to potential vulnerabilities in the AI memory, customer configurations, and permissions settings.
There is the risk that confidential data ingested by the AI could resurface where it shouldn’t, or that the AI could pull public data, including malicious code into the company’s systems. The Google privacy statement also suggests that data inputted might not be as private as it makes out: “Don’t enter anything you wouldn’t want a human reviewer to see or Google to use. For example, don’t enter information you consider confidential or data you don’t want to be used to improve Google products, services, and machine-learning technologies.” This suggests the company’s privacy claims aren’t quite what they seem.
ChatGPT for Enterprise: Pros and cons for insurance companies
Integration and Flexibility: ChatGPT is platform-agnostic, allowing integration with various applications such as Slack, Salesforce, and custom APIs. This flexibility enables insurance companies to incorporate AI capabilities into diverse workflows without being confined to a specific ecosystem. However, if your company is already on Google Workspace, this could cause some challenges with integrating with emails and documents.
Functionality: ChatGPT excels in generating human-like text, making it suitable for tasks like drafting policy documents, customer communications, and analysing textual data. It can be trained to respond to customer queries, based on company information, aiding with customer services use cases. Enterprise users have access to advanced data analysis, previously known as Code Interpreter, for solving complex code and maths problems, suggesting it may perform more strongly for underwriters carrying out more complex calculations. It also offers shared chat templates enabling teams to collaborate and build common workflows. Full customisation based on exact business needs is also available.
Data Security and Privacy: As with Gemini for Google Workspace, OpenAI emphasises that data shared by business users via ChatGPT Enterprise is not used to train its models. Each organisation receives a dedicated workspace with customisable data retention policies and domain verification. Enhanced user management is facilitated through SAML Single Sign-On (SSO) and SCIM, and the platform complies with SOC 2 Type 2 standards, ensuring robust encryption for data at rest and in transit. Nonetheless, the same concerns apply as with the Gemini solution, including the risk of accidental publication or leakage of sensitive information, as well as memory, storage, and permissions challenges.
Conclusion
Both ChatGPT Enterprise and Google Gemini for Workspace hold huge potential for insurance companies to help streamline workflows, reduce unnecessary administration, and enhance productivity across the insurance lifecycle.
They are both powerful tools so it is hard to choose between them based on functionality, and insurance companies are likely to decide based on which works best within their current ecosystem. For Google Workspace users, Gemini makes sense, while, for others, the best option may be ChatGPT Enterprise.
But, whatever tool a company opts for, seeking advice about security and privacy considerations should be paramount, particularly with AI guidelines and regulations coming into force. Furthermore, with research finding nearly 30% of insurance customers are concerned about losing human interaction due to AI, and 43% lack trust in AI’s decision-making, businesses must ensure the benefits firmly outweigh the risks.
Moreover, the introduction of specialised AI solutions like FormFlow by Insly exemplifies the tailored approach that some sectors may prefer. FormFlow specifically enhances the efficiency of MGAs and insurance companies by automating complex form and data processing tasks, serving as a reminder that industry-specific tools can sometimes offer significant advantages over more generalised solutions.
