Field notes
From separate assistants to one platform: why we rebuilt Panora
· By Diane du Paty, CEO & co-founder · 2 min read
Our first version lined up separate assistants: one to quote, one to compare, one to report to the client. They shared nothing. Why we rebuilt everything, and what it changes for brokerage firms.
With today’s tools, shipping a convincing demo takes a weekend. One agent reads a company extract, another fills in an extranet, a clean interface on top. It impresses in a meeting.
The hard part is something else: a product an account manager uses ten times a day, on real files, without surprises. A product where a wrong premium is not “a 5% hallucination” but an error that engages the firm’s liability.
What our first version got wrong
The first version of Panora lined up separate assistants. One for quoting. One for comparing offers. One for reporting to the client.
Each one worked. Together, they shared nothing. The risk entered to quote was not the one being compared. The client record lived in the management software, not in the assistant. The broker made the link by hand, and that link was precisely the busywork we claimed to remove.
Brokers told us so, bluntly. They were right.
What we rebuilt
We rebuilt everything around three building blocks.
One assistant. The broker asks for what they want, in their own words. A simple task is done on the spot. An entire procedure becomes a workflow, every sensitive step waiting for their approval.
Connected to the firm’s software. The management software stays the reference. Panora reads it, writes to it, and keeps the trace. Nothing is exported, nothing is re-keyed.
Every connector maintained by Panora. Insurer and wholesaler extranets, email, documents, company data. Each broker’s own access, within a restricted scope, logged. When an extranet changes, the connector follows.
What it changes for a firm
A firm does not adopt a tool because it is impressive. It adopts it because it holds up every day, on real files, with account managers who have no time to learn.
That is the product that won first prize at the Onze Bis brokerage festival in June. The one more than a hundred partners and brokers came to see on our stand at the Journées du Courtage. And the one about fifty firms use today, in France and Belgium.
Building fast is still useful: to test, to learn. But what matters is what remains once the demo is over.
