The regulatory variable in an accelerating industry
Bateson has spent 40 years in the insurance industry. When he started underwriting, technology was essentially absent from the desk. Now, underwriters have access to vast amounts of third-party data and unstructured information that would have been unimaginable at the start of his career. He expects that pace to accelerate further, driven by computing power and the continued development of major technology platforms.
“The evolution, particularly in the last five to ten years, has just quickened dramatically,” he said. “I would imagine that’s going to be the norm going forward..”
Insurance, he argues, is particularly positioned to benefit from these advances given the volume and variety of unstructured data flowing through underwriting and claims processes. But he identifies one significant variable: the regulators.
Every state maintains its own insurance department with authority over how carriers operate. Bateson expects regulatory scrutiny of AI to intensify, particularly around bias in decision-making and whether automated systems can be trusted to operate without human oversight.
“Depending on how regulators approach things, that could slow things down, or it could create a need to have the human in the loop more than a straight agentic process where the system is making the decision entirely,” he said. “That regulatory piece could have a real impact.”
