Field notes
Building AI in-house: what it really commits a brokerage firm to
· By Diane du Paty, CEO & co-founder · 2 min read
The question comes up in almost every management committee. The motivations are sound. But building is not launching a project: it is hiring, connecting every tool, keeping up with an AI that changes every quarter, and maintaining it all. The most underestimated part: the connectors.
“What if we built our own AI?” I hear this question in almost every brokerage management committee at the moment. It deserves a real answer, not a vendor’s reflex.
The motivations are sound
Keeping control of your data. Depending on no one. Having a tool shaped for the way you work, not for the way the firm next door works. A brokerage asking this question has understood something important: AI is going to reach the core of its trade, and it does not want to be on the receiving end.
I share these motivations. It is the conclusion I do not share.
Building is not launching a project
A project has an end. A product does not. Building your own AI means committing on four fronts, at the same time, for years.
A team. Hiring engineers who can make models work on insurance documents, then keeping them, in a market where everyone is looking for them.
The connectors. This is the most underestimated part. A useful agent has to read and write in the management software, in the mailbox, and on the insurer and wholesaler portals. Every portal has its own screens, its verification codes, its unannounced changes. They have to be connected one by one, then maintained one by one. We look after several dozen of them. It is a full-time job, forever.
Keeping up. Models change every quarter. The right choice in January is no longer the right choice in September. You have to evaluate, compare and migrate, without breaking what works.
Maintenance and security. Hosting, encryption, audit log, GDPR, the Insurance Distribution Directive. And someone on call when a portal changes on a Friday evening.
What truly deserves to be yours
Your procedures. Your rules. Your data. That is where the difference between two brokerages is made, and it is exactly what you keep with Panora. You describe your procedure in your own words, it becomes a workflow. The agent runs it in your tools. Every action stays approved by you.
The rest, the team, the connectors, the watch, the maintenance, is our job. And it is what the brokerages that joined us this month chose: keeping control, without carrying the load.
