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In this episode of the Benefits Broker Boost Podcast, Adam Smith, CMO at Plansight, sits down with Brent Combs, the engineer behind the Plansight AI. Brent shares his journey from a skeptical underwriter to a chronic AI power user, explaining why he initially opposed general-purpose AI in favor of deterministic logic. The conversation explores the creation of the Plansight AI engine: a sophisticated, node-based system designed to solve the insurance industry’s most grueling data entry challenges. By focusing on “shape accuracy” and “purpose-built” constraints, Brent explains how Plansight delivers 91.09% accuracy on the industry’s toughest documents while keeping the human firmly in the loop through innovative features like annotations.
Brent did not start his career as an AI evangelist. Coming from an underwriting background at Blue Cross Blue Shield, his default setting was “trust but verify.” When the opportunity arose to pivot from deterministic machine learning to general-purpose AI, he was the biggest detractor.
“I had to prove to myself that it was possible. My assumption is that I have a default, as it doesn’t work, it’s not accurate, it’s not consistent, it’s expensive, and it’s slow. And then I have to prove to myself every single day of working on it that I’m wrong about that.”
This skepticism became the foundation of the Plansight philosophy. Rather than building a simple chatbot, Brent developed an intelligent automation system that uses the right tool for the job, whether that is a complex large language model or a simple logic parse.
For AI to be effective in a professional production environment, it must stand on three specific pillars: accuracy, consistency, and efficiency. Brent explains that getting these three aligned is the difference between a cool experiment and a scalable workflow.
“Is it accurate in doing the task? Is it consistent in doing that task? And is it able to do it efficiently? So fast and cheap. And when you can get all three of those pillars aligned for your tasks, you’re in pretty good shape.”
A major hurdle for AI in insurance is “drift,” the tendency for models to provide varying answers to the same question because they mimic human speech patterns. Adam points out that while general AI digests the entire internet, choosing the right AI for a specific industry requires scaling smarter with AI through prompt engineering and strict constraints.
“As you get more and more specific, it takes that from trying to digest all of the information on the internet and gives you the right answer to more of a mathematical equation,” Adam explains.
By narrowing the AI’s worldview to focus only on life insurance or medical plan documents, Plansight eliminates the “noise” that can lead to hallucinations. This SmartSheeting AI approach ensures that the model stays on a specific road rather than wandering into irrelevant topics.
Plansight hasn’t just built a “wrapper” around ChatGPT. They have built an AI Engine, a collection of nodes that route data based on complexity. Some tasks require a high-level LLM, while others are better served by a simple Boolean or regular expression. This architecture allows Plansight to ensure the technology isn’t “over-solving” simple problems.
Plansight measures scale, accuracy, and client impact using a sample set of over 500 of the most challenging source documents in the industry. Brent uses an aggressively punitive grading system: if the AI misses the “shape” of a plan, such as failing to identify one plan out of four, the entire document receives a zero.
“We’re 91.09% accurate on the most difficult documents that I can find in the insurance industry,” Brent shares.
This rigorous renewal automation QA and QC process ensures that the output isn’t just right on a content level, but normalized in the exact way a broker needs to use it downstream in strategic benefits consulting.
Adam highlights that without these constraints, AI is just guessing based on thousands of conflicting search results. By using customer-driven innovation, Plansight transforms that chaos into a step-by-step, mathematically rigorous process.
“What does the user actually want based on the input that they gave us? And that’s basically what the engine is. It allows us to basically use the right tool for the job at hand.”
The latest innovation from Plansight is Annotations, a feature Brent calls a “breadcrumb trail” through uploaded documents. Instead of asking users to blindly trust the AI, Plansight lets them click any extracted value to see exactly where it was sourced from the original document.
“This has never been about taking the human out of the loop; it’s been improving the value and the life of the human that’s in the loop,” says Brent.
By moving from data entry to strategy, brokers can reduce the time spent on manual spreadsheeting by a conservative 40%. Adam notes that in a “side-by-side” screen, validation now takes seconds, “Click, yep, that matches”, transforming the entire broker workflow.
The true ROI of technology isn’t just the minutes saved; it is what you do with that reclaimed time. As the industry moves beyond the spreadsheet, the differentiator will be those who use AI to unlock human creativity and passion.
If you haven’t seen Plansight in action and you want to, book a discovery call with us.
At the end of the day, Plansight is more than just software. It is a partner built with brokerages and their benefits teams in mind. Plansight is the only end-to-end benefits marketing platform that uses AI and automation to ensure every renewal and RFP is consistent, accurate, and fast.
From SmartSheetingAI™ to RFP automation to side-by-side comparisons to the intelligence of PlansightAI, everything we create is designed to lighten the load, reduce risk, and elevate your client relationships. Your team is your greatest asset, and Plansight is here to make sure they have the tools, insights, and support to shine.
Plansight works alongside leading General Agencies to help brokers move faster, stay compliant, and deliver a better client experience. You can explore our trusted GA partners here.
For brokers, Plansight transforms a manual, time-consuming RFP process into one that is faster, more efficient, and more profitable, without sacrificing accuracy or control.
