The modern consultant: artificial intelligence's thoughts on the impact of labor shortages on the recall insurance market

There is a high level of expertise in the current recall market, be it brokers, underwriters, crisis management consultants or damages experts. If you are familiar with the product recall industry, you’ll know that these professionals are a critical component to the preparation for and execution of a product recall. Their skills, experiences, and understanding in the nuances of handling a recall that make them stand out for business owners and stakeholders concerned by risk.

However, with all the discussion of artificial intelligence (AI), myself and colleagues often find ourselves asking the questions of whether our expertise has the same relevance as it once did.

As a millennial, early in the early stages of my career, all this discussion of AI made me wonder whether my skill set and expertise will have a similar value 10 years from now. With that said, I thought it would be interesting to perform a quick experiment on AI’s knowledge on the impact of labor shortages on recall risk.

Labor shortages are a hot topic in the recall insurance market, with many key decision-makers asking what impact these shortages may have on the increased risk of recall occurrences, as well as potential increased loss exposure. What did AI make of all this?

While scrolling through various social media feeds over the last few months, I discovered a website called OpenAI and their “ChatGPT” system. From my limited technical understanding, this is an artificial intelligence-backed search engine that is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response. I have seen a variety of stories highlighting this technology, including college students using it to write papers and social media users using AI to make Drake rap about beans. (If you have not seen this video, I would highly recommend searching for it!).

So, I went to the ChatGPT website and entered the following prompt: “write an article on the impact of labor shortages on product recall insurance.” To my amazement, the article below was produced in seconds:

Labor shortages can have a significant impact on product recall insurance, as they can increase the likelihood and cost of recalls.

When a company experiences labor shortages, it may struggle to keep up with production demand and may cut corners in order to meet deadlines. This can lead to quality control issues and an increased risk of product defects, which can trigger a recall.