The digital transformation of the french non-life insurance sector: "ai: a resurgence of the barras reverse cycle?

This paper studies the digitization of French non-life insurance services, and in particular the impacts of the introduction of artificial intelligence. By detecting anomalies quickly, systematizing repetitive cognitive tasks and improving forecasting, artificial intelligence is boosting the productivity of service activities, and substantially reducing the costs of certain tasks. But the integration of artificial intelligence into the service sector also brings a number of new challenges such as the financial weight of its introduction into organizations, the ethical issues related to data protection, and above all the strategic challenges associated with partnership building and the evolution of the market share following the transformation of the insurance ecosystem. On the methodological side, this research is based on a qualitative analysis. Several interviews of the key players of the French insurance ecosystem are conducted. To analyze the knowledge and practice areas, we mobilize the work of Ivanov and Webster (2019). These authors highlight the various dynamics that crystallize the issues and prospects of AI in insurance services. This conceptual framework is based on the insurer organization and identifies the activities in its value chain that can be outsourced and those that remain managed in-house. Other insurers (strict competitors and "coopetitors") and AI-providing service providers (not exclusive to the insurance sector) represent the other side of this ecosystem. The initial results show that, while the introduction of artificial intelligence appears to follow the stages described by Barras' model, it leads to significant transformations in these activities. The introduction of artificial intelligence seems to lead to profound changes in the insurance ecosystem.