ILC ARTICLE

Industry leader interview with Tractable co-founder and president, Adrien Cohen

21st October 2020

What are the challenges facing your business right now, and how are you working to overcome them?

Our biggest challenge today is managing growth. We were already expanding quickly, and the Covid crisis then accelerated that further – as the crisis ramped up demand for our AI solutions, which facilitate touchless claims and remote assessment. As a result, we’ve seen interest levels in our tech double – even triple, in some markets – in 2020. 

That’s a great challenge to have, but it’s also a very difficult one to meet – because, again, of covid. We are scaling up, which means that we are looking to hire very quickly; but right now we are building entire teams that have never met in person. 

What has been your biggest business learning from the coronavirus pandemic?

That we can operate remotely and build a global product for clients around the world, from home. Previously, I was a full-on advocate for having everyone in the office, working together; and yet we were able to transition to remote working without missing a step. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it. 

As we go to a “new normal” what are you looking forward to returning to and practices will you keep?

We’ll keep remote working within the company culture, but I also look forward to getting back to the office so we can come together as a team. I don’t think we need this from a production standpoint – we’ve shown in 2020 that we can still produce while working remotely – but from a social perspective, as well as a mental health one, it’s key. I also want to make sure my team feels appreciated and motivated to succeed: it’s super hard to do that on zoom. 

If you could go back to the beginning of 2020, what piece of advice would you give to yourself?

I have three young children, including a pair of twins, and I was not prepared for the challenge of being prepared to home-school them, on top of work. In particular, I have had to re-learn how to teach a child how to read and write. So I have would have told myself to get ready for that! 

What would be your prediction for the industry in 2021?

We’re at the tipping point of AI going mainstream – not just in claims management, where we feature, but across the board. When we demo our tech, it achieves human performance levels and in some circumstances improves on it – which is where it needs to be to get mainstream traction, instead of niche acceptance. I expect those levels to be replicated across the claims sector but also far beyond, transforming how insurers carry out their day job and helping them concentrate on what really matters – the customer.