Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay and businesses of all sorts are rightly being scrutinised by clients, suppliers and their insurance providers about how they use it.

We know because it’s happened to us too.

So, can you be sure your business is using it responsibly and safely?

Our experience of AI scrutiny

Our experiences suggest auditors are concerned how we, as an insurance broker distributing their products, are using AI. We‘re being asked to document and share our AI policies and procedures and being grilled on how we have trained our staff on when and how it’s suitable to harness AI.

Despite our expertise distributing AI specialised insurance products, the tables have turned and we’re now being scrutinised on our own AI use.

What does it mean for your business?

If we’re being asked these questions, it’s likely other businesses across the country are too, not just insurance brokers like us.

And although it can feel threatening, it’s actually a good learning experience for us all. The auditors are asking well drafted and well thought through questions that can help us understand our AI awareness and business use.

What you could get asked

Knowing what we’ve been asked can help you critique your own AI use and reflect on whether there are things your business could do better.

Typically, the AI questions we’ve been asked fall into one of five categories:

Tools and tech
We’ve been asked:

  1. What AI tools do we use?
  2. Are they free public versions, paid enterprise versions, custom-built or integrated with our systems?
  3. Who approved their use, was it IT, compliance and risk, senior management, individual employees or no one?

Purpose and use
We’ve been asked:

  1. What do we use AI for?
  2. Does AI assist human decision-making, make recommendations, or make automated decisions without human input?

Human oversight and controls
We’ve been asked:

  1. Are AI outputs reviewed by a person before use?

Data usage and confidentiality
We’ve been asked:

  1. Do we input client personal data, special category data, financial information, commercially sensitive data, intellectual property, policy or contract documents?
  2. Are employees banned from entering confidential data into AI tools?
  3. Does the business know where AI data is processed, whether it is stored or reused, or whether it leaves the UK or EEA?

Insurance and liability awareness
We’ve been asked:

  1. Have we considered whether AI use affects professional indemnity exposure, cyber insurance coverage, directors’ and officers’ liability, or contractual liability?
  2. Have insurers been informed of our AI use?

Use AI wisely

AI is not to be feared but our experiences demonstrate it shouldn’t be used blindly. You are responsible for your business use and although there is a lot to be gained from using AI, you also need to know when to step away.

Use our experiences to check you’re using AI wisely.

Speak to our team of friendly experts to get the right cover.