Q: What are the details of today’s announcement?
A: Applied Systems has acquired Planck. This transaction will bring together Applied Systems, the leading global provider of insurance software, with Planck, the leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) company for the insurance industry. This acquisition significantly expands Applied’s AI capabilities to accelerate its vision for the next generation of the digital roundtrip of insurance, creating more value at each stage of the insurance lifecycle benefitting agencies, carriers and their clients.
Q: Why did Applied acquire Planck? How will this benefit the insurance industry?
A: Over the past two decades, and especially since the COVID-19 experience exposed a lack of digital solutions, the insurance industry has been investing in technology at an increasing pace. The transformation from legacy technologies to modern, cloud-based solutions has benefitted the insurance ecosystem immensely, creating new value from traditional insurance business models while introducing brand new ones to our industry. Although we are in the early stages of the AI era in insurance, AI solutions have proven value across various other industries, and we believe it has the potential to empower our industry at an even more accelerated pace.
Over the past 18 months, Applied has released our first versions of AI-powered features in select Applied and EZLynx products, while also experimenting with various AI capabilities through our Applied AI Lab. We’ve been busy working alongside many of our customers and partners to identify opportunities to realize the value of AI in secure and practical ways that can deliver intelligent automation throughout the insurance lifecycle. We have conviction that through the use of AI our industry has immense opportunities. With Planck’s platform, we will lead our industry in discovering how AI can reduce the inefficiencies of redundant tasks and unlock the value of data to create a more accurate and holistic view of business to fuel growth. Together, we will lead the way in building solutions for our customers that improve the speed and quality of critical business processes spanning marketing, sales, underwriting, renewals, servicing and advisory services.
We believe the time is now to take bold steps to lead the insurance industry in discovering and implementing the benefits AI has to offer. By acquiring Planck, we welcome a world-class team of AI and Data Science experts and a top-notch AI technology platform to accelerate the application of leading AI capabilities. At Applied, our focus is to earn the title of Indispensable Growth Partner by helping our clients win. With our unique set of insurance technology assets that span both the agency and carrier sides of the market, we believe we have a significant opportunity to create AI-driven value throughout the next generation of the digital roundtrip of insurance in ways that will help our clients know more, do more, and win more.
Q: How will this benefit Planck and Applied Systems customers?
A: Planck’s customers and partners will experience no immediate impact to their primary services or support contacts. We believe the combination of Applied and Planck will provide significant benefits and greater choice to both companies’ customers, partners, and other industry stakeholders.
Applied is committed to investing behind the combined teams to drive continued product innovation and deliver the highest level of value to our customers and partners. Our customers will greatly benefit from integrated AI capabilities that improve value for all stakeholders across the insurance distribution channel.