According to Accenture’s AI Progress Barometer, insurance companies have made the fastest progress in AI readiness compared to other industries globally, reflecting significant progress in transforming processes and modernizing their data foundations.
Global professional services firm Accenture has released findings from its first-ever Artificial Intelligence Progress Barometer, which tracks how the artificial intelligence readiness of some 3,000 of the world’s largest companies changes over time, comparing each company to peers across industries and regions.
Companies are scored on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 representing the highest level of AI readiness among the companies assessed.
Barometer showed overall improvement in AI readiness across 10 of the 18 industries tracked, with insurance companies (+8 to 48.6) seeing the fastest growth globally, followed by travel (+5.7 to 46.7) and consumer goods (+5.2 to 43.7).
Gavin Stephenson, head of data and artificial intelligence for EMEA at Accenture “This development reflects a shift from experimentation to large-scale execution. More and more European companies are starting to use AI to reshape business processes while cleaning data and building employee skills. For example, insurance companies are not only deploying AI on top of existing processes, but also redesigning how work is done – simple claims can be automated from damage assessment to payment, while complex cases need to be flagged by human experts. This redesign is only possible with clean, integrated and accessible underlying data and a properly trained workforce.”
The data also shows that European companies’ AI readiness scores improved by 1.6 points over the past six months, while North American companies improved by 1.1 points.
However, North American companies continue to maintain high overall levels of AI readiness, with an average score of 48.9 out of 100, while European companies scored 43.1 points.
Mauro Macchi, CEO of Accenture Europe, Middle East and Africa “Europe is clearly building real momentum in AI, driven largely by its largest companies. They understand that for AI to deliver more value faster, it will require enterprise-wide reinvention, not just plug-and-play adoption. This means rethinking operating models, redesigning how work is done, strengthening the data and technology foundation, and most importantly ensuring leadership engagement and appropriate governance and change management. The speed of execution will determine Europe’s future competitiveness,” said the company.
The pace of progress varies widely across countries and sectors. Companies in France (+5 to 43.1), the UK (+4.8 to 44.5) and Spain (+4.6 to 39.9) have made the greatest gains in AI readiness.
