Health insurance startup Plum launches AI-powered tool PolicyGPT

Bengaluru-based health insurance startup Plum has launched an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tool called PolicyGPT, which aims to provide customers with educational information about their policies by chatting with a bot in 'natural' language.  

PolicyGPT is a chatbot created using the OpenAI GPT-3 architecture, a deep learning-based language model that generates human-like text, code etc., to provide users with information about their health insurance policy purchased from Plum. It has access to user policy details and also general knowledge on health insurance, with the primary goal of educating users about their policy. 

Saurabh Arora, Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder of Plum, believes that technologies such as PolicyGPT has the potential to revolutionise the insurance industry… as the service will help bridge the gaps that insurance companies currently face in terms of customer service and response time.  

According to the company, insurance is a complex world to navigate, especially for employees who find it hard to read through and understand the policy document. With most users generally availing insurance in an emergency, it is important to be educated around ‘what is covered and what is not covered’ to make informed decisions regarding treatment choices. “PolicyGPT is different from other insurance tools because it is an AI-powered educator, enhancer, and assistant," Arora added. 

“With PolicyGPT, members can now get instant answers to their health insurance coverage questions, learn about inclusions and exclusions and expand their knowledge about policies,” said Arora. 

GPT, or Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is a type of advanced text generation model trained using vast amounts of internet data. The GPT3 model with its ability to produce diverse outputs has made it a highly talked-about topic in data science, its successor GPT-3.5 was revealed with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, is a fine-tuned iteration of the model designed as a general-purpose chatbot. Further, GPT4 is considered the latest iteration of the GPT model, known for its advanced capabilities. 

To be sure Indian tech companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys are introducing training and skilling for employees on ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Also, brands such as aviation company Air India, Velocity, a fintech firm and microblogging platform Koo among others are already using the various versions of GPT to optimise their language-based operations and stay ahead in today’s increasingly digital business landscape.