Brian Poppe - "You Can't Just Slap AI On It" And The Four-Phase Test for Carrier AI Adoption

Brian Poppe has done something rare in L&A: he started as an actuary, founded Mutual of Omaha's innovation practice as the entire department of one, served as Chief Data Officer, and now runs the company's life insurance P&L. That breadth is the lens for this conversation.Brian walks through his four-phase AI adoption framework — awareness, helping individuals, redesigning processes, and AI talking to AI — and gives a refreshingly honest read on where carriers actually sit. (Spoiler: most claiming phase four are still in phase two.) He shares the story of a partnership he loved but had to kill because the timing of the offer to grieving families was wrong, why he flew his CTO to Silicon Valley for a "petting zoo tour" that became the foundation of Mutual of Omaha's cloud insurer, and where he thinks carriers will see the first real process redesign — back-office NIGOs, not underwriting.Listeners will leave with a sharper way to evaluate their own carrier's AI maturity and a clearer sense of what real innovation looks like inside a Fortune 500 mutual.