Notch spent two days at Insurtech on the Silicon Prairie in Omaha as a silver sponsor and exhibitor. On one stage, with no competing tracks, the conference brought together insurance CEOs, AI leaders, startups, and the regulators who oversee them. That mix shaped every conversation.

Key takeaways

• Auditability was the theme of the event. The question has moved from what AI can do to whether you can prove what it did. Every agent decision needs a record that holds up when a state department of insurance asks for it.
• Regulators were in the room, and that changed the conversation. Carriers usually talk about compliance in the abstract. Here, the people who write the rules were in the same sessions, so governance came up as a practical question about what to show, to whom, and when.
• Pilots are done. Production is the question. The message we heard at ITC Vegas held in Omaha. Teams have run their pilots and want to know what it takes to run AI on real volume without losing control.
• ROI has to be proven, not projected. The ROI of AI was its own session for a reason. Leaders want a single workflow with measured results before they back the next one.
• Explainability matters on the front line, too. Underwriters and adjusters need to see why an agent made a call before they’ll rely on it. Trust inside the team matters as much as trust from the regulator.
• The human side decides adoption. In the sessions and at the booth, everyone agreed on one point: the goal is to take manual work off experts so they can spend their time on judgment, not to remove the expert.
• Omaha’s insurance community shows up for the people who show up for it. Insurance is woven into the city, and the community around this conference is tight-knit. Sponsors and exhibitors aren’t treated as vendors in the hall. The hosts and attendees made a point of thanking us for being there, and we don’t take that for granted either.