Younger generations ready to embrace AI, according to new Airmic report

Entitled Investing in the Right Future: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Profession, the report was published by Airmic in association with WTW.

The survey report laid out the four key findings, presented by Hoe-Yeong Loke, Airmic’s head of research.

• The younger generation, specifically Millennials and Generation Z, were ready to embrace the promise of AI.
• The risk profession continues to offer inspiring careers, with more than half of respondents being with their present organisation for over five years.
• The profession is playing a part in social mobility, with over four in ten of graduate respondents saying that they were the first in their family to go to university. 
• Organisations need to build a more inclusive pipeline to senior management.

Speaking at the Airmic Conference, Hoe-Yeong said: “AI is in the news every day down to there being a fear of it taking away jobs or being an ‘existential threat to humanity’, but it can help equip risk professionals to bring greater value to their organisations as strategic enablers.

“And as fears and other risks about AI grow, and as AI legislation and regulations grow, it will reinforce the need for human decision making and oversight, a role that risk professionals are well positioned to take up.”

In the report, Lord Tim Clement-Jones, member of the AI in Weapon Systems Committee, a House of Lords Select Committee, said, “Given the growing importance of the need to assess and plan for the risks created by AI and the opportunities for better assessment and planning presented by it, it is crucial for the whole profession to upskill, and to embrace and understand these new technologies and how to ethically adopt them.”

The report lays out the areas in which AI can be beneficial to the industry, citing that routine, rote tasks can be handed over to it and consequently freeing human minds up for more creative, specialised work that brings greater value to their organisations.

Airmic ran a roundtable with a diverse group of young members to discuss the future of the profession, at which the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) was raised. They are using AI applications for tasks such as populating their organisation’s insurance renewal forms – not groundbreaking, but a gamechanger nevertheless. They are also experimenting with ChatGPT, and similar applications, to explore how generative AI and chatbots could enhance the way they work.

 “Young Airmic members are alive to the risks that AI poses to society, and they believe this gives risk professionals a key role to play relating to human decision-making and oversight,” the report said.

The report also laid out other ‘hot topics’ at the top of the minds of Airmic members.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) was the leading subject that 63% of members most felt they needed to learn more about.

“Overwhelmingly, respondents in the survey concluded that the ‘G’ in ESG – governance issues relating to risk culture – needed upgrading if their organisations’ objectives for the ‘E’ and the ‘S’ – environmental and social issues, respectively – are to be achieved,” said the report.

Also named among the top ten subjects that Airmic members wanted to learn most about were emerging risk (61%) risk management principles and practices (50%), insurance laws and regulations (42%), risk maturity (42%), business continuity (41%), insurance principles and practices (39%), and captives (38%).