David Fishel (pictured), chief growth officer at Higginbotham, a broad-based, employee-owned insurance and financial services company headquartered in Texas, which crossed $1 billion in revenue for the first time in its 77-year history in 2025, says artificial intelligence is creating one of the greatest opportunities the insurance industry has seen in decades.
It, he believes, is accelerating the development of the next generation of producers, account executives, account managers, etc., while making experienced advisors and team members even more effective. Rather than replacing relationships, AI is helping firms scale knowledge, improve service and spend more time where it matters most: serving clients and building trust.
Fishel's role spans both organic growth and inorganic growth through agency partnerships and strategic recruiting. While the insurance industry faces an aging workforce, he believes AI gives firms an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate learning, preserve institutional knowledge and develop future leaders more quickly than ever before.
For generations, the insurance business has been built through apprenticeship - experienced producers and team members investing in the next generation. That model isn't changing. What's changing is how quickly new producers and new team members can absorb technical knowledge. AI is dramatically shortening the learning curve, allowing young producers and team members to become productive faster while giving veteran advisors more time to coach, mentor and build client relationships.
"AI is accelerating how quickly someone can learn the technical side of this business, but it doesn't replace wisdom, judgment or relationships," Fishel said. "Those are earned over time. This is a people business. Relationships and trust are going to carry the day.” Ultimately, the firms that win will be the ones that combine great people with great technology."
Fishel said younger professionals often bring an intuitive understanding of AI tools that create immediate value, while experienced professionals contribute the context and judgment that ensure clients receive the right advice.
“Like any tool, AI is most powerful when paired with experience,” he said. “Technology can accelerate research and surface ideas, but experienced professionals provide the judgment, context and critical thinking that clients depend on.”
The greatest opportunity comes from pairing digital-native talent with experienced professionals. Younger professionals embrace emerging technology, while seasoned professionals bring decades of market knowledge and trusted relationships. Together, they significantly accelerate the transfer of expertise while improving client outcomes.
Fishel emphasized the importance of resisting the urge to chase every new AI platform. At Higginbotham, we adopt AI deliberately first understanding the technology, ensuring it aligns with business strategy, and then committing to implementation. We believe two things matter most before embedding AI into the business: clean, reliable data, because any AI solution is only as good as the information it receives, and a clearly defined business problem to solve, because AI is a tool not a strategy in itself. By taking a crawl, walk, sprint approach, we have been building a strong foundation, learning from each step, and scaling AI in ways that create lasting value for our clients, employees, and business.
Fishel pointed to companies that have learned technology works best when it enhances, rather than replaces, the customer experience. He believes the same principle applies to insurance. “Technology should make relationships stronger, not smaller,” he said. “If AI allows our producers and service teams to spend less time searching for information and more time sitting across the table from clients solving meaningful problems, then everyone wins.”
