Sabine VanderLinden

Alchemy Crew Ventures

Delivering R&D and Adoption Labs that accelerate, industrialize, and democratize how tech ventures collaborate with corporations. Our labs use acceleration, co-creation, and commercialization frameworks to de-risk corporate–venture partnerships, enabling insurers and financial institutions to grow and scale venture-led initiatives with confidence.

We also systematize engagement models for a select group of high-growth ventures, helping them navigate and win with enterprise partners. Our work spans two core pillars:

Venturing — scouting, validating, and scaling corporate–startup collaborations.
Media — amplifying voices, insights, and ecosystems that drive adoption at scale.

Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer & Venture-Client Partner

Bayes Business School

Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow within the Faculty of Management of The Bayes Business School (formerly Cass). Working directly with Professor Gianvito Lanzolla on the topics of corporate venturing, business model innovation, disruptive innovation, and the commercialization of effective tech platforms to identify the replicable and sustainable winning criteria of growth ventures.

Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Management, The Business School (formerly Cass)

The CareVoice

The CareVoice is on a mission to make insurance more human, with health at its core! As a leading health insurtech company, The CareVoice offers CareVoiceOS, the first healthcare operating system for insurers, creating an ecosystem that transforms member experiences. Their innovative, mobile-based, data-driven SaaS platform empowers insurers with unparalleled digital solutions, enabling them to reach untapped markets swiftly and create bespoke health customer journeys to revolutionize the health insurance industry and foster deeper connections for improved health outcomes!

Chairperson of the Advisory Board

ACORD Solutions Group

Chairperson of the ACORD Solution Group Board

Chairperson of the Board

Business Insurance

Business Insurance Women to Watch Awards & Leadership Conference is a prestigious annual event celebrating the achievements of leading women in the commercial insurance and risk management sector. Scheduled during Q4 of the year in the UK and the USA, the Awards recognize leaders and bring together women from every facet of the industry. The conference not only honors their contributions but also provides a platform for networking, professional development, and fostering leadership.

Advisory Board Member

Invest Tokyo

Educating tech ventures on the opportunities available in Japan and Tokyo to enable the City of Tokyo to shape a leading hub for tech ventures. Connect Tech Ventures interested in Tokyo with the local hub.

Tech Ambassador

Mandalore Partners

Complementing Mandalore Partners VC as a Service proposition with digital ecosystem building techniques. Engaging with insurers and financial institutions interested in developing more sustainable corporate venturing initiatives.

Tech Investment Advisor

Scouting for Growth

For the past 10 years, I have helped multiple tech companies (including big tech, startups and scaleups) and investors define growth strategies. This process has led me to sit on boards and advisory boards. It also led me to evaluate the power of social media channels, including LinkedIn, X and Instagram among others. Today, I reach millions of people through my education-driven approach. 

I launched the Scouting for Growth podcast in December 2021 and then pushed the podcast to full swing in 2022. I realized then that only 30 percent of growth ventures received investment from investors, and very few succeeded in commercializing with corporations. 

The Scouting for Growth podcast is produced weekly. It addresses the topics of corporate venturing, collaboration, and investment. It targets tech ventures, investors, and corporate executive leaders seeking to understand the key ingredients of digital transformation and growth in a fast-paced AI world. 

On the podcast, I talk to investors, startups, and innovation leaders. I aim to unearth strategies for success. We reached 1 million downloads in December 2024, and today, the podcast is a top 10 business and entrepreneurship podcast and is listened to in 150 countries.
🎧 Listen to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

Scaleup Advisor | Influencer Marketing | Chief Podcast Officer

The InsurTECH Book

One of three co-editors of bestseller, The INSURTECH Book, the first crowdsourced insurance book published by Wiley in May 2019. During the editing process, 240 chapter briefs were reviewed and 70 articles were selected and written by experts ranging from trend, technology, value chain, collaboration experts.

Co Editor of The INSURTECH Book

Punks & Pinstripes

One of the 100 Punks and Pinstripes' Members ONLY, a private network of the most impactful rebel executives in the Fortune 500 and beyond. Punks and Pinstripes' mission is to help one another stay punk and build breakthroughs. 

The network helps each member with the following hard things:
- be different from the other leaders in one's company or industry,
- beat the difficulty out of oneself because one wants to do and be more,
- make more money together 🤘🏽,
- listen without judgment or solutions.

Because each member helps one another with the difficult tasks, we're also very skilled at making money, solving problems, and building epic things.

General Participating Member

Activate Innovation Ecosystems | Tech Ambassador | Founder of Alchemy Crew Ventures + Scouting for Growth | Chair, Board Member, Advisor | Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow-Bayes Business School

I don't just talk about innovation, AI, workforce or digital transformation— I build the bridges that make things real.

As Founder & Venture-Client Partner of Alchemy Crew Ventures, I run global R&D + Adoption Labs that connect Fortune 500 insurers and corporates with the most brilliant tech ventures on the planet. Think of us as the “fast lane” between startup brilliance and enterprise adoption. My themes include FinTech/ InsurTech and deploying AI at scale responsibly. 

What this looks like in numbers:
📍 Accelerated 160+ ventures and sourced 55,000+ startups worldwide
📍 Invested in 35+ early stage startups
📍 Delivered exits like FitSense → Zurich (2018), MyFutureNow → L&G (2019), and Tia Tech → Sapiens (2020)
📍 Created Insurer-led Acceleration and Scaleup programs that turned pilot purgatory into scalable commercial success

But the real story? I help founders land their first million-dollar client, build authentic personal brands, and help corporates cut through the noise to adopt tech that drives real growth.

My world revolves around:
📍 Venture Clienting 2.0 & Corporate Innovation Frameworks
📍 AI (ethics, adoption, emerging risks)
📍 Climate Resilience, Risk Futures & Sustainability Transformation
📍 The Future of Work (where humans + tech thrive together)

Beyond Alchemy Crew:
📍 Co-editor of the bestselling INSURTECH Book
📍 Wrote forewords for the Future of Insurance and Momentum
📍 Lecturer on Corporate Venturing at Bayes Business School
📍 Board + advisory roles across VCs, Scaleups (The CareVoice), foundations (Women to Watch), standards (ACORD Solutions) & global insurers
📍 Top 10 Business Podcast "Scouting for Growth" 
📍 Recognized with 10+ awards, including Most Influential CEO – Insurance Corporate Ventures (2024/2025)

My channels beyond LinkedIn:
x.com: @SabineVdL
instagram: @sabinevdlofficial
Medium: @sabine_vdl
Podcast: Scouting for Growth and Beyond Tech Frontiers
Newsletter: alchemycrew.ventures

What drives me?
Creating value where others see friction.
Turning hype into measurable outcomes.
And making sure technology becomes a force for good, not just another buzzword.

Award List (10+): Insurance Times-Tech & Innovation Awards Winner (2018), Grant Thornton-Face of a Vibrant Economy (2018), Business Insurance-Women to Watch Honoree (2019), Corporate Vision-Venture Validation Firm of the Year (2021), Finalist Women in Insurance Perseverance Award (2021), Awarded Perseverant Company to Watch in (2021), ACORD Awards (2020/2023), Most Influential CEO-Insurance Corporate Ventures (2024/2025).

Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer & Venture Partner

Delivering venture labs that accelerate, industrialize and democratize the way tech ventures engage with corporations. These labs apply acceleration, co-creation, and commercialization techniques to de-risk the way insurers and financial institutions collaborate, grow, and scale their venture-led growth initiatives.

Also, systematizing for a select group of growth ventures the way their engagement with corporations.

You can find out more 👉🏽 https://alchemycrew.com/

🌟 Are we trusting AI blindly? 💫

The latest SAS and IDC Data and AI Impact Report just dropped last week 30 September, and it reveals a critical disconnect leaders can't afford to ignore.

We're in a state of "AI trust paradox." The report shows that while 78% of organizations claim to fully trust AI, a staggering only 40% have invested in making their AI systems demonstrably trustworthy through governance, explainability, and ethical safeguards.

This isn't any longer just a philosophical debate, right? It's a direct hit to the bottom line for many enterprises. The report proves that tangible ROI from AI is directly linked to trust. Trying to scale AI on weak data foundations is like building a skyscraper on quicksand.

Here are my key takeaways for leaders:

📌 The Trust Dilemma is Real: The gap between perceived trust and actual trustworthiness is where value is lost. We're adopting human-like AI, like Generative AI (81% adoption), faster than we're securing it.

📌 Move Beyond Cost-Cutting: The lowest ROI from AI comes from simply trying to save money. The real wins are in market share growth and enhanced customer experiences.

📌 Agentic AI Needs a Solid Foundation: The next wave of AI will stall without optimized cloud environments, robust data governance, and skilled talent.

📌 The Future is Governed AI: The race to AI supremacy won't be won by speed alone, but by trust and governance. It's time to shift our focus from just using AI to trusting AI.

I believe the trust imperative is the single most important conversation in AI right now. 

What are your thoughts? 
Are we moving fast enough on AI governance?

#TrustInAI #Leadership #FutureOfWork Franklin Marinela Oana Claudio Joanna

startupbootcamp-insurance

alchemycrew

sabinevdl

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #innovation, ##branding, ##motivation, ##venturecapital, and #artificialintelligence

Venture Client Pioneer | Chair, Board Member, Advisor | B2B Tech Ambassador | CEO @Alchemy Crew Ventures | Top 10 Business Podcast | Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow-Bayes Business School (formerly CASS)

🌟 The moment she took her first steps. Is this the real ROI of innovation in healthcare?  💫

I watched this video (see below) a few times now across social channels of a young woman walking again thanks to a breakthrough in neuro-prosthetics, and it stopped me in my tracks. This is a powerful, tangible demonstration of how far we’ve come. The technology that gave her back her mobility was only possible because of bold investment and a system willing to underwrite the future.

This reveals a fundamental truth: Healthcare is certainly about treatment but most of all about human potential. The line between health tech and insurance is dissolving, creating a new, integrated ecosystem focused on maximizing life quality, not just minimizing risk.

For every Chief Digital Officer and Venture Catalyst, this is the signal: The market is demanding a shift from indemnity to empowerment. The next generation of trillion-dollar companies will be the ones that master this convergence, turning high-risk, high-reward medical breakthroughs into insurable, scalable realities.

Here’s what this story implies for the future of our combined sectors:

🧬 Personalized Risk Models: Wearable and genomic data will make policies predictive, not punitive, rewarding healthy outcomes.

🤖 Insuring the Uninsurable: New tech (like the device in this video) requires new underwriting models that embrace, rather than fear, radical innovation. I met a great startup focusing on this scenario at ITC Vegas a few days ago!

📈 Proactive Wellness: The focus shifts to preventing the need for the miracle, creating a massive new market for preventative digital health solutions.

🤝 Ecosystem Collaboration: Insurers, pharma, and tech startups must co-fund and co-develop to bring these life-changing solutions to market faster.

The question is no longer if this technology works, but how we make it accessible and affordable for everyone. What is the single biggest barrier your firm is facing in moving from reactive coverage to proactive human empowerment?

A truly inspiring way to end the week. Wishing everyone a restful, healthy, and perspective-changing weekend! ✨

🌟  The boardroom question that makes executives squirm: "So... what's our AI ROI?"  💫

Here's why 78% of you are about to get very uncomfortable. 👇

This week, Tuesday, 14 Oct, I locked 50 insurance execs, startup founders, and strategic investors in a Las Vegas conference room for our #AIHorizons2030 Summit. 

Among other respected industry minds, Franklin Manchester, from SAS facilitated a panel that had half the room texting their CTOs in real-time. 😊 

The verdict? We're not just building AI. We're building the decade that determines whether insurance survives—or gets Blockbustered.

Fresh data from the SAS Viya + IDC study reveals something wild:
📍→ 78% of orgs claim they "fully trust" AI 
📍→ Only 40% have actually made their systems trustworthy 
📍→ 46% are stuck in what researchers call "the trust dilemma"

🤔 Translation: Your shiny new GenAI might sound confident... but it could be making everything up.

Here's the $10M insight: Organizations that prioritize trustworthy AI are 60% more likely to achieve double-digit ROI.

Not "might see better returns." Are 60% MORE LIKELY.

In this week's newsletter, I'm unpacking:

✅ Why we trust GenAI 200% more than machine learning (despite it being MORE error-prone)
✅ Franklin's truth bomb about trust-centric brands
✅ The "courage to cannibalize" your own profit pools 
✅ Why cost-cutting AI delivers the LOWEST ROI 
✅ What agentic commerce means for your 2026 strategy

The uncomfortable truth? By 2030, insurers deploying #agenticAI will see an expense ratio advantage of 20 points or more (quote: Denise Garth). That's existential advantage. Or extinction.

Scott Gunther warned us: "If you don't have an agentic strategy by ITC Vegas 2026, expect disruption."

That's 11 months from now!

Read the full newsletter 👇

Download the SAS + IDC Data & AI Impact Study: https://bit.ly/48IXZlI 

The 2030 winners are placing their bets right now. Are you among the 9% who'll get it right—or the 46% still stuck in pilot purgatory?

Choose wisely. The algorithm is watching. 😏

🌟 From Data Chaos to Strategic Clarity 💫

🤯 Your company just spent billions on an acquisition. But there's a secret in the back office: a core system so fragile, no one dares to touch it for fear it might break.

This isn't hypothetical. It's a real story I heard from Yandy P., CEO of DataHaven Software, on my recent #ScoutingforGrowth podcast. It's a shocking symptom of a much larger problem plaguing insurance finance teams everywhere.

For too long, CFOs have been trapped in a reactive cycle. We spend weeks wrestling with spreadsheets and legacy systems just to answer one question: "What happened last month?" Meanwhile, the role of the CFO is rapidly evolving. A recent McKinsey report shows 60% of CFOs now cite strategic planning as their top priority, up from just 38% last year.

How can we be strategic partners when our data is a rear-view mirror?

Yandy calls the solution an "intelligence layer"... A way to unify data without ripping and replacing core systems. Think of it like this: instead of waiting weeks for financial reports, imagine having real-time visibility into your position, just like checking your credit card balance on an app.

Here's what that transformation looks like:

📌 From Reactive to Proactive: Real-time financial visibility instead of month-end surprises
📌 From Cleanup to Insight: Slashing manual reconciliation by up to 80% to focus on strategic analysis
📌 From Bottleneck to Big-Picture: Empowering CFOs to be true strategic partners with data that drives growth

This is first about reporting for sure. It is much more though about building a more resilient, intelligent, and forward-looking insurance industry. The companies that crack this code first will have an enormous competitive advantage.

What do you think is the biggest barrier holding finance teams back from this future? Is it technology, culture, or something else entirely?

And make sure to grab a coffee with Yandy at #ITCVegas. I look forward to catching up with you next week.

#InsuranceCFO

🌟 Agentic AI isn’t “just another copilot.” It’s AI that can decide, act, and learn—and without trust, it’s a liability. 💫

Recently, a CEO asked me: “We’ve got chatbots—do we have Agentic AI?” 

🤔 Short answer: not necessarily.

As per SAS recent research, AI agents automate tasks and make decisions using rules and algorithms. Agentic AI goes further: multiple agents coordinate with higher autonomy to sense their environment, choose actions, learn from outcomes, and operate under human oversight.

The leap from “smart helper” to “self-directed system” changes the game. You're not just answering questions—you're orchestrating outcomes. That means governance, auditability, and explainability must scale with autonomy.

As you all know... it is HIGHLY unlikely that boards will sign off on agents that don't show their work, or that are not supported by humans. If trust is your brand's core asset, visible controls must sit beside velocity.

🤝  Agent ≠ Agentic: Task automation is common. Remember: Coordinated, autonomous agents are different.

🧭  Human oversight by design: Set autonomy levels (assist → approve → act) and make them inspectable.

🔁  Full lifecycle: Perceive → reason → decide → act → learn. Capture each step for audit.

🛡️  Trust as architecture: Embed governance, explainability, and logs. Don't push for "add-ons" later.

🧩  Interoperate: Plug agents into people (e.g., that VITAL human in the loop) as well as processes and systems... And this without ripping out what works.

Where would you set your first autonomy gate: assist, approve, or act—and why?

If GenAI is the engine, trust is the seatbelt. 
No seatbelt, no green light. 🚦

Make sure to review the link in the comment below.

#AgenticAI #AIAgents #ResponsibleAI

💧 AI’s Thirst for Power is Reshaping Our World. But at What Cost? 💫

The race to dominate the AI landscape is no longer just about algorithms and data actually. It’s a battle for physical resources. 

A recent, thought-provoking video highlights a critical vulnerability that many leaders are overlooking: the immense water and energy consumption of the data centers that power our AI ambitions.

Alongside the environmental, social, and governance concerns, the issue becomes fundamentally strategic. The little documentary video I shared below reveals that the competition for AI supremacy is creating a new geopolitical map, where “resource power” is becoming as decisive as computing power. As the Global North secures regions with cool climates and renewable energy, the Global South is left to bear the environmental consequences without the infrastructure to compete.

For those of us in leadership positions, this raises urgent questions about the long-term viability of our AI strategies. Are we building our technological future on a foundation of resource scarcity? Are we prepared for the geopolitical shifts that will inevitably arise from this new resource-based competition?

Here are my key takeaways for you, my fellow leaders:

💧  Acknowledge AI’s Hidden Cost: We must move beyond the abstract nature of AI and confront its tangible, physical footprint. The immense water and energy requirements of data centers represent a significant and growing operational risk.

🌍   Understand the New Geopolitics of AI: The global distribution of AI infrastructure is not equitable. This disparity will create new dependencies and power dynamics that will have far-reaching consequences for international relations and global supply chains.

💡   Champion Sustainable Innovation: The future of AI is inextricably linked to the future of sustainable technology. The most resilient and successful AI strategies will be those that prioritize innovation in both artificial intelligence and the infrastructure that supports it.

I believe we are at a critical juncture. We have the opportunity to build a more equitable and sustainable AI-powered future, but it requires a shift in our perspective. We must begin to see the world not just in terms of data and algorithms, but in terms of “the resources that make it all possible.”

How are you factoring resource constraints into your AI strategy? Is your organization prepared for the new era of “resource power”?

Curious to read.

cc: Geopolitical Guy

SHOULD YOU ASK YOURSELF: "Why are we spending millions on AI governance when our competitors are moving faster?"

Here might be a few reasons why:
📍 46% of organizations are caught in the trust dilemma
📍 35% over-rely on unproven AI
📍 11% underuse reliable systems

Results? Lost ROI. Mounting risk.

Here's what the data actually shows: GenAI is trusted 200% more than traditional ML. And this even when the foundations are weak. That "human-like" glow is fooling us. We're treating probabilistic systems as prophetic ones.

Your board or CFO should ask: "What's the fix?" The answer isn't sexy. It's not another copilot. It's not agentic workflows. 🤔 It's governance. Explainability. Audit trails.

The companies winning at AI? They're not moving faster. They're moving smarter.

📍 Customer experience delivers 1.83x ROI 
📍 Market share expansion: 1.74x 
📍 Resilience: 1.71x 
📍 Cost-cutting? Dead last.

52% of organizations are already using some form of agentic AI I read. But here's the brutal truth:
📍 49% are blocked by non-optimized cloud data 
📍 44% by weak governance 
📍 41% by talent gaps 
📍 Only 25% have central AI governance teams

The gap between hype and readiness isn't small. It's existential. So here's my 90-day board play:
1️⃣  Name 5 critical use cases. Bind each to a business KPI.
2️⃣  Turn on lineage tracking for every model. Publish a one-page Model Factsheet to Risk.
3️⃣  Stand up an AI Controls guild (Legal, Risk, Security, Data, Product) with a weekly approval cadence.
4️⃣  Fix data centralization for one domain. Don't rip and replace.
5️⃣  Set autonomy levels for agentic workflows with audit trails.
6️⃣  Measure ROI like a CFO would!

Boards love copilots. Auditors love controls.

Make sure to read the full study... Link in the comments below 👇🏽
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
P.S. This is based on the SAS + IDC Data & AI Impact Report analyzing thousands of organizations' usage of AI globally.

Your "How-to-Guide" to Trustworthy AI

✨ Grateful. Energised. Inspired 💫

What a week at #ITCVegas 2025 — and what an honour to host our AI Horizons 2030 executive kickoff on October 14th!

Every year, I walk away from this event reminded of why our industry matters: we don't just insure risk! Indeed, we reimagine resilience.

💡 This year's conversations were bold: from trust and governance in AI to the rise of agentic systems and hybrid human–machine workforces.

 🚀 And the energy? Off the charts. Between panels, hallway chats, and countless coffees (and cocktails!), the best insights often happened off stage.

I'm deeply grateful to:

 🤝 The InsureTech Connect team for creating the magic that brings us together each year.
 🎤 My fellow panelists, speakers, and supporters who made the AI Horizons 2030 session so memorable.
🌿 My partners who help define how value is created within and outside our industry.
 💫 The incredible innovators, insurers, and investors who showed up with curiosity, courage, and kindness.

Swipe through the collage...  📸  A mosaic of friendships, ideas, and laughter shared with people I'm lucky to see rarely every year (you know who you are!).

Until next year… let's keep pushing boundaries, connecting across silos, and building the future — together.

A bientôt...

Back from ITC Vegas 2025-My Week in the Sin City

🌟 Your insurance app has an 8% adoption rate. Your wallet? 80%. 💫

🤔 Let that sink in for a second.

Suppose you are a traveler going on your next trip overseas. Receiving a vital alert, such as a flight delay or an earthquake warning, is not to be taken lightly. You do not want those through some clunky app downloaded once and forgotten about, but through your insurance wallet pass. Real-time. No login. No fumbling. The kind of moment that turns a nightmare into "wait, my insurer actually has my back." And this is achieved through Miss Moneypenny Technologies' wallet studio platform.

Here's what the insurance industry is finally waking up to: We've spent billions building apps customers never open, while the answer was already in their pocket. Over 4.5 billion people use mobile wallets daily for payments and boarding passes. Yet most insurers are still trying to force-feed another app into already overwhelmed digital lives.

The shift from paper policies to wallet-native CX isn't just about digitization—it's about showing up at the moment of need, not just at the moment of sale. And the data is starting to scream:

📌 80% engagement rates with wallet-based insurance touchpoints (vs. the industry's dismal 8% app adoption)
📌 59% of customers will abandon a brand after several bad experiences—17% after just one
📌 Insurers investing in CX see an additional $700M in revenue within 3 years (Temkin Group)
📌 The global mobile wallet market is exploding from $10B in 2024 to $104B by 2034—a 26.3% annual growth rate

This is what I call the CX Activation Fabric—a mobile-first service layer that makes your insurance helpful during daily life moments, not just during renewals or claims. 

Think: MOT reminders with one-tap scheduling, severe weather alerts with protection tips, lost luggage claims filed in 60 seconds from Rome. All native to the wallet app customers already trust and check daily.

Companies like ERGO Insurance and Zurich Insurance understand what this means from a customer experience viewpoint.  Meanwhile, the $3.5B traditional insurance app market keeps churning out digital ghost towns.

The uncomfortable truth? Meeting customers on their terms beats making them come to yours. Every. Single. Time.

So, make sure to ping Marc Lampe and Anna Bojic at InsureTech Connect -> #ITCVegas. They are on their way 😊 

Read the full article and make sure to drop your thoughts below... 

Because this revolution is happening right now. 👇

https://lnkd.in/eYEazVK4

I'm hosting a LinkedIn Live today.
​Amrit Santhirasenan from hyperexponential Talks Agentic Underwriting…. 
Please block your calendar and join us for this insightful deep dive.

86% of underwriters are burning 2+ hours a day on manual data entry.

That's not underwriting. That's expensive data processing. And while your team wrestles with 50MB email attachments and "attachment soup," brokers are taking their business to carriers who can quote in hours, not days.

Join me LIVE on 9 October at 12 pm EST/ 5 pm BST as I sit down with Amrit Santhirasenan, CEO of hyperexponential, to unpack Agentic Underwriting: From Theory to Enterprise Transformation.

This isn't another AI hype session.

We're talking:

✅ Multi-agent systems that orchestrate intake, triage, pricing & compliance
✅ How carriers like Aviva, Convex & Markel are achieving 50% faster submission-to-bind
✅ The metrics executives actually need: cycle-time compression, hit-ratio lift, loss-ratio improvement

For Chief Underwriting Officers under board pressure to prove ROI and scale beyond pilot purgatory—this conversation is built for you.

📍 Register now HERE.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See you there. Let's turn those spreadsheets into a strategic advantage.
#AgenticAI #UnderwritingTransformation #ITCVegas

🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://lnkd.in/e2KvYJcm

Milica Vidojkovic, Matthew Mitrovic and 105 other attendees

Amrit Santhirasenan Talks Agentic Underwriting…

🌟 Legacy systems aren't the problem. It is the disconnect which is! 💫

In my latest #ScoutingforGrowth conversation with Bobbie Shrivastav, Co-founder and CEO of Solvrays, we explored how the company's AI-driven orchestration platform eliminates 5 to 7 manual touchpoints in workflows such as claims intake and beneficiary changes, reducing processing times from days to minutes.

💡 Here's the reframe:

Insurance didn't fail to go digital. It digitized. But this happened in fragments.
Behind every "digital" process, there are still invisible paper cuts: manual handoffs, copy-paste workflows, and systems that don't speak to each other.
That's where innovation gets stuck, not in the cloud, but between systems.
Solvrays fixes that gap.

Their hybrid architecture seamlessly connects legacy and modern systems, utilizing database and agent-based AI connectors for the old and APIs for the new, thereby creating a unified operational layer for policy, claims, and underwriting.

As Bobbie puts it: "Seventy-four percent of our industry still runs on legacy technologies. Customers shouldn't feel that difference."

True digital transformation isn't about replacing everything... It's instead about embracing new ways of working... It’s about designing so well that the customer never sees the seams.

Bobbie: I'm looking forward to seeing you at InsureTech Connect this week 😉. So much to dive into, right? 

#DigitalTransformation #InsuranceInnovation #ITCVegas

🌟 Why AI projects fail? The culprit may be bad data. 💫

For years, we've been told that data is the new oil. 🤔 But what happens
when that oil is dirty, biased, or locked away behind privacy walls? Your AI
engine sputters and dies.

This is the data quality crisis, and it's costing US businesses over $3 TRILLION a year (source: IBM.) But what if you could create your own pristine, high-octane fuel for your AI?

That's the power of #syntheticdata. 

It's not "fake" data, actually. This is data that gives you the freedom to innovate responsibly. We're talking about artificially generated data that mirrors the real world without compromising privacy.

It's like a flight simulator for your AI, allowing it to train on any scenario imaginable without real-world consequences.

Leaders who aren't exploring synthetic data are already falling behind. 

Here's why it's such a revolutionary approach:

📌 Train Without Risk: Financial services institutions are using synthetic data to train fraud detection models without exposing a single customer's identity. (Thanks to tools like SAS Viya's Data Maker!)

📌 Teach AI the Impossible: Want to train an AI to detect a rare disease or a
once-in-a-lifetime manufacturing flaw? Synthetic data can generate endless examples of these edge cases.

📌 Build Models in Days, Not Months: Forget lengthy approval cycles and data bottlenecks. With synthetic data, your team can prototype and test AI agents in a fraction of the time.

I am sure you would agree that this isn't just about better AI. it's about
building a future where innovation and integrity go hand-in-hand. It's how the
team at SAS builds trustworthy, explainable agentic AI.

What's your take? Is synthetic data the key to unlocking the next wave of AI innovation, or are there hidden risks we're not considering? 
Let's discuss below. And Check the Insights too! 👇

#AgenticAI #FutureOfAI

Synthetic Data - Here Are Your 3 Game Changing Use Cases!

What is this Agentic Underwriting?
Make sure to jump in and discover 👇🏼

🌟 Is This The Time To Unleash Your Inner Insurance Superhero? 💫

Walking the floor at #ITCVegas, this bright booth from Novidea caught my eye… and for good reason. Their message? Empower brokers, MGAs, and carriers to become data-driven heroes.

The world of insurance is changing, we must admit. It is evolving faster than a speeding bullet. During the past three-day conference, we learnt that platforms like Novidea are certainly one of the secret weapons with an insurance management system that is a full suit of armor built for:

🧭 360° visibility into your business
⚡ Streamlined, quote-to-bind workflows
📄 Effortless document generation
🔍 Actionable insights that let you move faster, smarter, and stronger

As I often say, the future of our industry belongs to those who transform complexity into capability. And solutions like this help our industry leaders fly higher, think bolder, and deliver more value to customers.

💬 So, here's a question: what's the superpower your business needs most right now — data clarity, speed, or collaboration?

And here is to the superheroes out there… And thank you, Julie, for my slim superhero waist! 😉 

#Leadership #Novidea #Superpower

🌟 Your team just got 12 new employees. They're AI agents. Who's managing them? 💫

Last week KPMG released a new report: 74% of CEOs are investing 20% of their entire budgets into AI in the next 12 months. But here's the twist that should terrify every boardroom leader: they're not planning layoffs. They're hiring for AI skills and building what KPMG calls "Agent Control Systems"... essentially HR departments for AI employees.

Welcome to the era of the #superhumanworkforce: teams of 3 humans managing 12 AI agents.

Here's what last week's news reveals about where we're headed:

🤔 The gap between investment and infrastructure is widening. While 74% of CEOs are pouring money into AI, only 22% of companies have a clear integration plan. It looks like we are heading towards an execution crisis.

Meanwhile, the smartest players are moving fast:

📍  Huntington Bank just launched a venture studio, saying "we're acting more like a tech company"
📍  Erie Insurance is expanding its CVC portfolio to access innovation at startup speed (beyond insurtech)
📍  The World Economic Forum is calling for insurance to evolve from paying for disasters to preventing them

The pattern is clear: corporations are becoming builders, not just buyers.

Three takeaways for insurance and finance leaders:

📍  The infrastructure imperative is here. You need Agent Control Systems, Context Cartridges, and new operating models. The winners aren't buying AI tools. They're also building AI operating systems.
📍  Your business model needs a reboot. With $120 trillion held by Americans over 55 and climate risks accelerating, the old playbook won't work. Swiss Re is talking about redesigning life insurance for the "Silver Economy."
📍  Speed is the only moat. Venture client partnerships and venture studios are creating "repeatable engines to turn bold ideas into real-world outcomes." If your innovation strategy still relies on 18-month sales cycles, you're already behind.

Today's transformation: Are you shape it or are you being shaped by it?

Think of it this way: while some executives are still debating AI use cases in committee meetings, others are already onboarding their 12th AI agent and building the infrastructure to scale to 100... responsibly and ethically.

The gap between the builders and the debaters is widening by the day. 👇🏽

Enjoy my full newsletter below.

🌟  YC isn’t just an accelerator. It’s a force multiplier shared Arvind 💫

When I spoke with Arvind, co-founder of Kyber on the #scoutingforgrowth podcast, about his Y Combinator experience, he didn’t describe perks or programs. He described leverage.

Leverage in the form of:

 ✅ Instant validation and trust signaling
 ✅ A network that answers your texts at 2am
 ✅ Advice that can reshape the trajectory of your business

The alumni community wasn’t a nice-to-have, he said. It became a lifeline... Founders who get the lonely, messy journey from 0 to 1.

And Arvind’s message was clear: if you’re hesitating to apply, you’re missing the real point. YC isn’t about getting in. It’s about finding leverage that compounds.

👉 So here’s my question: So, as we plan to meet again at Reuters Events Insurance in Orlando next week to dive into the future of AI-led claims management ochestration. How are you ALL building and shaping your collaborative networks and ecosystems to yield growth opportunities in 2026.

🎧 Full episode here:

Apple Podcasts:  https://lnkd.in/ejR76rM2
Spotify:  https://lnkd.in/ekM4zRZm

See you there, I hope...

🌟  The “Copy-Paste Crisis” and What AI Can Really Fix 💫

I am making my way to Reuters Events Insurance and I thought it might be helpful to remind you all of a recent chat I had on #ScoutingforGrowth podcast with Yo Sub Kwon, CEO at Voltaire, where we explored something that most conversations about AI overlook: #morale.

When Voltaire introduced AI into claims workflows, adjuster satisfaction jumped from 6.5 to 9.25 — a 42% increase.
 
Not because of perks, bonuses, or time off. But, because the grind disappeared. They called it the “copy-paste crisis” 
that endless cycle of digging through old files, reformatting templates, and second-guessing every word that could one day appear as Exhibit A in court.

AI didn’t replace them (they shared.) It liberated them. By automating repetitive documentation, adjusters finally had space to do what they were trained to do:

 🔍 Investigate losses
 ⚖️ Evaluate risk
 🤝 Serve policyholders

That’s what ethical, well-applied AI looks like.
It doesn’t just optimize, it uplifts.

 Make sure to join us this week at #CCUSA: https://lnkd.in/eiDuy7JG

🎧 And listen to our full conversation below. 👇🏼

🌟 2026 regret preview: we scaled copilots and starved controls. 💫

I know you have seen my recent posts. It is clear that the new SAS + IDC Impact Report shows a global “trust dilemma”! 

Nearly 50% of organizations misalign confidence in AI with actual trustworthiness. Meanwhile, GenAI wins hearts, even in low-governance settings, while the highest ROI lands far from “cost-cutting.”

When trust outruns trustworthiness, ROI stalls and risk compounds. GenAI is trusted ~200% more than ML where controls are weak! Top blockers to scale agentic AI remain non-optimized cloud data, governance gaps, and talent.

Boards don’t want more pilots. They ask for "proof of control:" lineage, drift, bias monitoring, and visible accountability. THESE are important steps to move AI from shiny to scalable. (And yes, platforms that make decisioning, explainability, and audit native help a lot.)

You need to think about:

✅ Face the dilemma: 46% of orgs are misaligned—> fix trustworthiness first.
📈 Chase real ROI: Customer experience, market share, and resilience beat “save costs.”
🧠 Govern GenAI harder than you love it: It’s trusted ~3× more than ML where controls are low.
🧰 Unblock agents: Data optimization (49%), governance (44%), and skills (41%) are the bottlenecks.
🗂️ Make trust public: Model Factsheets, lineage, drift & bias monitoring; autonomy gates—assist → approve → act—with audit trails.

QUESTION: Which one control would you show your board next quarter: lineage, factsheets, or autonomy gates—and why?

 If GenAI is the charismatic rookie, governance is the veteran coach. Championships need both. 🏆

Share your valuable thoughts 👇🏼
#BoardRisk #AgenticAI #ResponsibleAI

🌟 We Have Read It: 70% of insurers claim they're "customer obsessed." 💫

So why do most policyholders still dread calling their carrier?

I cannot wait to ask this question to a packed room at Reuters Events Insurance Connected Claims USA this week in Orlando. 

One of the lenses we will bring to the conference this year: Can we digitize the life out of empathy? And as we race toward AI-powered automation, will we want to unpack its costly paradox?

"Technology gives us power. But humanity gives us permission."

A bombshell study released last week by Triple-I and CAS reveals the price of getting this wrong: $231-281 billion in increased liability losses over the past decade—driven by legal system abuse and social inflation that far exceeds economic inflation.

Meanwhile, BCG's new research confirms that the majority of AI projects fail to scale. Why? Because we're focusing on algorithms when two-thirds of the transformation challenge is actually people—culture, adoption, and workforce upskilling.

Three insights for you to evaluate:
📌  The 2/3 Rule: Your AI strategy's success depends more on your people than your platform. Stop buying the car and forgetting to teach anyone how to drive.
📌  The Empathy Equation: When AI handles routine tasks, sales advisors increase face-to-face client time by 30%, improving conversion rates by 10-15 percentage points. That's not a soft metric—it's a hard business outcome.
📌  The Collaboration Imperative: Commercial auto liability has been hit hardest—22.6% to 30.8% of booked losses from legal system abuse. The only way to fight social inflation is to out-collaborate it.

1️⃣ I look forward to meeting strategic thinkers from leading insurers this week. 
2️⃣ Read the newsletter below and comment! 
3️⃣ ... and also so much looking forward to seeing many of my friends in Orlando... It looks like so many of us are in town this week.

taplio

Sabine VanderLinden's Linkedin Analytics