The MGAA’s recent Professional Optics webinar, AI Governance in the Workplace, sparked exactly the kind of dynamic and insightful discussion we hoped to see across the delegated authority market. The strong turnout from MGAs, brokers and insurance professionals reflected a growing recognition that AI governance is rapidly becoming a critical operational, cyber and regulatory issue for the sector.
Throughout the session, we focused on providing practical guidance for MGAs and the wider insurance market, recognising the reality that AI adoption across insurance has accelerated far faster than governance, controls and regulation.
The shadow IT risk
One of the clearest messages from the discussion was that many organisations are already exposed to unmanaged “Shadow AI” risks, with employees using tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft Copilot through personal accounts and outside approved oversight frameworks.
The audience poll results reinforced the scale of the challenge. In our opening poll, the overwhelming majority of attendees (82%) confirmed they are already using AI for work purposes . A second poll delivered another telling insight: while just over half of firms have formal AI governance frameworks in place (52%), many attendees described their organisation’s approach as informal/evolving (22%), or largely unmanaged (26%), highlighting the widening gap between AI adoption and effective governance. Interestingly, no one said that their firm was not using AI.
Increasing regulatory scrutiny
During the webinar, we explored several major risk areas now facing MGAs, including AI hallucinations, intellectual property contamination, cyber threats accelerated by AI, data leakage, and increasing regulatory scrutiny from bodies such as the FCA, PRA and ICO. At the same time, we stressed that AI governance should not be viewed as a barrier to innovation, but as a critical business control that protects competitive advantage, operational resilience and regulatory accountability.
We concluded the session with practical next steps for firms, including implementing AI governance committees, strengthening staff training, introducing approved platform controls and improving data classification policies.
Watch the full webinar recording here.
Download Intersys’ free AI Governance in the Workplace policy template here.
For more information on how businesses can power their IT through safe AI integration, find out more about managed intelligence providers.