In my experience of developing thousands of applications, AI is its most powerful in the little things. For example, in my business, if you go to the top of any one of my websites, you can see there’s a phone number. When you call that number, you’ll talk to a kind and friendly AI assistant named Allie. She’ll find out what you need and, most importantly, ask you for your contact information. That’s lead generation happening 24/7, 365 days a year, never taking a break and never going on vacation.
Nurturing leads
Then what happens when you get that lead? We know that one of the most challenging things in businesses, specifically in insurance and financial services, is following up on leads when they reach out to you.
What if your AI system identified a lead, rated and nurtured the lead? Then when the lead gets on a phone call with you, they’re excited to be there and they want exactly what you offer. That is the dream of artificial intelligence.
AI can help you optimize your business processes by doing them faster. So, look at your business processes and how you operate.
Ethics and compliance
While AI can amplify what you do, don’t lose sight of your ethics and core values. The No. 1 failure companies experience with AI is security. They don’t understand how to establish guardrails within an application to make sure AI doesn’t overshare or have too much access to sensitive information. Most organizations fail to understand how important security and cybersecurity are to an AI solution.
When using and implementing AI in your business, know what you want it to do. Build a plan for AI. Write it down, set some rules, create boundaries and ask questions.
Noelle Russell is the founder of the AI Leadership Institute. She’s a technologist who specializes in helping companies with cloud, data and AI transformation. She has built more than 100 conversational AI applications since 2014. This was excerpted from her 2025 MDRT Global Conference presentation. You can see another excerpt of that presentation in the video, “Scaling responsible AI from enthusiasm to execution.” (MDRT member-exclusive content)
For more ideas on how AI can help you be more productive
- Watch “How to use AI”
- Read “How AI helps me by working like another assistant”
- Watch “Time-saving tips: MDRT members discuss AI” (MDRT member-exclusive content)
