The broker–client relationship has always been personal. But in a market overwhelmed by data and rising client expectations, artificial intelligence may be the tool brokers need to keep those relationships sharp and relevant.
“There is no substitute for personal relationships,” said Rajeev Gupta (pictured), co-founder and chief product officer at Cowbell. “But there are tools, including AI tools, that can actually help.”
As brokers manage increasingly large books of business, staying on top of individual client needs becomes more difficult. Gupta argued that AI can act as an extension of a broker’s memory, pulling up relevant policyholder information, past conversations, and outstanding issues before meetings.
“It could really help bring to the surface any challenges or opportunities you talked [about] last time,” he said. “So it helps the broker with the relationship in a very meaningful way.”
For Gupta, it’s not about replacing the human element - it’s about equipping brokers to deliver a smarter, more contextualized client experience. “It’s not about replacing that personal touch with the digital tools,” he said. “It’s about how you strengthen your client interaction with the digital tools.”
The rise of direct-to-consumer models, automated underwriting, and platform-based distribution has triggered warnings of broker obsolescence. But Gupta dismissed that narrative.
“That’s a threat that has been going on for a decade,” he said. “First, it was wholesale brokers under fire, then retailers. But brokers are not going anywhere because relationships are needed.”
Still, the bar is higher. Brokers today need to deepen their understanding of client needs and deliver more complete, data-rich applications to carriers. Gupta pointed out that surface-level submissions don’t cut it anymore - and AI can help brokers ask smarter questions and build stronger applications.
“Once you feed the AI context, it can use its enormous database,” he said, “to provide relevant data points that tie very closely with the risk that's being transferred.”
He offered a health insurance example: “Providing just my age and ethnicity is not sufficient information - they need to know my medical history,” Gupta said. “So what is the follow-up question to that? What’s the follow-up question to that follow-up question?”
That depth of discovery - often difficult to scale manually - can now be guided by intelligent systems, helping brokers uncover client needs that may otherwise be missed.
Large brokerages with in-house tech teams may seem better positioned to take advantage of AI. But Gupta argued that AI can, in fact, flatten the competitive landscape for smaller firms.
“You could say that large brokerage firms have more resources than smaller ones,” he said. “But with AI, even the small retail shop with three or four brokers could all have the same set of capabilities through the use of AI.”
According to Gupta, the opportunity isn’t about scale - it’s about mindset. Brokers who embrace AI tools can elevate the quality of their work, regardless of company size.
“If the goal is to better my relationship with clients, the data can be used for exactly that very purpose,” he said.
