24th January 2017

Having recently sent a group of CDL people to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) re:INVENT conference in Las Vegas, we report on hot topics from the meet up and what they might mean for insurance retailers.

Without doubt, the predominant theme was AWS's mission to 'democratise' technology, and bring powerful, large-scale, low-cost computing capacity to companies big and small.

For a while, AWS has been providing the cloud computing services underpinning some of the biggest names in business, including Airbnb, Spotify, Vodafone and Netflix.

Now there is a palpable sense that this mission is gathering speed, as the company expands its global infrastructure, while accelerating the pace of its developments to maintain some distance between it and its nearest competitors.

Hot on the heels of the conference, the recent announcement of AWS' brand new, state-of-the-art data centre in the UK is confirmation, if any were needed, that the technology provider means business.

The AWS proposition makes cloud computing more accessible by providing businesses with powerful services that help them to avoid investing in costly infrastructure themselves.

Cloud hosting makes it possible to automatically scale capacity up or down as businesses' computing needs increase or decrease, making it a flexible solution for small or large scale businesses with both steady and fluctuating demand patterns.

Cloud computing also opens up new possibilities for sectors which have previously struggled to harness IT effectively due to the overwhelming volumes of data they handle; for example government agencies, medical and financial services.

As evidenced by disruptors such as Airbnb or Lyft, these powerful new technologies are giving businesses the opportunity to 'reinvent' traditional services and scale their propositions rapidly. Cloud based systems offer speed that keeps up with demands by reducing the time needed to transfer resources and data.

But it isn't just about the technology infrastructure.

Other Amazon companies are spearheading developments to transform the interface that drives the customer experience and bring technology to people in new ways.

Machine learning in particular enables computers to 'learn' without being programmed and to easily adapt to new data. Such systems enable companies to streamline their services, boost efficiency and discover new ways of doing business.

From Alexa (Amazon's intelligent personal assistant) to Polly (its new text to speech service), Amazon is increasingly combining artificial intelligence, machine learning and rapidly evolving voice recognition to 'join up' the Internet of Things.

The Amazon Echo smart speaker for example is capable of a growing array of functions including voice interaction, making to-do lists, setting alarms and providing weather, traffic and other real time information. It can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation hub.

On their own, these developments may not sound that significant but bring them together, and they offer new opportunities to enhance product propositions.

Whether it's car insurance that gives feedback on safer driving or home insurance that includes a range of diagnostic alerts (water leak or smoke alarm failure for example) then triggers other actions to put preventative measures in place (call out a plumber or order new batteries), the fact is that insurance is changing and this is just the beginning.

The message is clear - anyone can take advantage of these developments - as long as they have the imagination to envision what these new products and services will look like.

And, for the insurance sector, this message is a call to arms. The opportunities, technologies and capabilities are growing. Yet so too is the gap between 'traditional' insurance products and the expectations of millennial consumers.

What is needed is the boldness to break out from traditional constraints and invest in creating a new generation of consumer-centric insurance products - with technology companies who have a proven track record when it comes to innovating and bringing viable commercial products to market in an accelerated timeframe.