AI and Human strategic intelligence: a party of two
The world will continue to change, so we must adapt and move with it. As we stimulate every corner of our Group to think long-term, we continuously provide them with key-insights on trends impacting our stakeholders and our business, through our unique Horizon Scan exercise.
Each year Ageas conducts an extensive trends analysis, the Horizon Scan exercise, for which we developed a tailor-made approach with our partner Trensition. We start by tapping into the local strategic knowledge and expertise that exists within the Group. We compare and combine these human insights with findings generated by our AI trend scanner and embed these findings into our strategic plans. Let’s have a closer look!
A customised and dynamic 5-step process that supports decision-making
Ageas’s Horizon Scan is fully customised for and by Ageas.
- Members of the internal strategic think tank ‘Think2030’, comprising representatives from local businesses and from diverse backgrounds, select and update the trends to monitor each year.
- Through a large-scale internal survey, employees across the Group assess the potential impact of these trends on our business and the timeframe in which they should reach their full maturity.
- In parallel, Trensition’s AI-driven search engine analyses these same trends against millions of open data sources. It provides a view on the trends’ life cycles whilst flagging new trends appearing on the radar. Evidently, with the use of AI we can significantly reduce the cost and time of processing such a wealth of data.
- Then, it’s up to the Think2030 members to rationalise and interpret the findings. The AI engine confronts our human convictions with data, thus stimulating further reflections on the potential impact and maturity level of trends. It also allows us to prioritise efforts and reflections around change initiatives, as well as to better understand trends not recognised by our internal survey.
- The output of the Horizon Scan exercise serves as a compass for Ageas’s long-term strategy. It can reorient local business plans along the way and be a tool to select themes requiring clarification, further analysis and/or awareness.
The 2022 Horizon Scan in a nutshell
Since we started the Horizon Scan process in 2018, interest internally has grown exponentially, reflecting our people’s curiosity towards future evolution of trends, but also their confidence in the process as a valuable and reliable tool.
The devil is in the (AI) detail…
Trensition’s AI search engine collects big data from a variety of trustworthy external data sources and uses this information to analyse, monitor and predict trends.
- Media and internet content analysis tools help highlight emerging attitudes and social movements.
- Industry databases, patent and bibliometric databases provide early warnings of scientific and technological developments.
From these data, AI can analyse important trends emerging, the sources of these developments and who the key actors and influencers might be.
