Building the ‘broker of the future’: Baldwin’s strategic GenAI deployment with Persistent

The Baldwin Group (Baldwin), one of the fastest-growing insurance brokers in the U.S., has embraced an ambitious goal: to fundamentally transform the insurance brokerage industry.

Through its collaboration with Persistent, a leading digital engineering company, Baldwin is leveraging generative AI (GenAI) to reshape how it processes, analyzes, and extracts data from insurance documents. This partnership lays the foundation that Baldwin calls the ‘brokerage of the future,’ where cutting-edge AI tools will streamline operations, enhance decision-making, and create a seamless experience for both brokers and clients.

Navigating complexity in insurance documentation

Baldwin’s rapid expansion, from $300 million to $1.3 billion in just a few years, brought significant operational challenges. This growth, fueled by multiple acquisitions, left the organization grappling with fragmented systems and disparate platforms. In an industry as document-heavy as insurance, this created an urgent need to standardize operations and processes, particularly around document management.

Mayur Rajdev, Senior Director at the Baldwin Group, shared the Achilles’ heel for brokers today—the complexity of dealing with hundreds of carriers, each with their own document formats. Baldwin’s previous attempts to automate document processing using traditional tools hit a wall—most solutions required significant training on each document type, making them ill-suited to the wide variation in forms Baldwin faced. As a broker, Baldwin receives policy documents from multiple carriers, all with a distinct terminology. For instance, a carrier might refer to a policyholder as the ‘insured,’ while another might call them the ‘policy owner.’ Training AI to account for every variation became unscalable, creating a pressing need for a new approach.

Designing a scalable GenAI foundation

In collaboration with Persistent, Baldwin set out to build a GenAI-powered document management platform that would not only address the immediate challenges but also lay the groundwork for future growth. Central to this effort was the development of a platform that could extract, classify, and analyze insurance documents in real time without requiring constant retraining, as illustrated in the following exhibit.

Exhibit 1: Key solution details build in modularity, tech agnosticism, and training independence

Source: Persistent, 2024

Persistent’s approach involved three key design principles: training independence, scalability, and a model-agnostic architecture. These principles ensured that the solution could handle diverse and changing document formats with minimal human intervention while being flexible enough to integrate with different AI models as they evolve.

We built a system where business users can describe a document in simple terms, and our platform converts that into dynamic prompts. That’s how we cater to different types of documents across the business. It’s about scalability and extensibility—whether it’s real-time transactions or bulk processing, this approach minimizes effort as the platform adapts to new use cases with minimal configuration.

— Mayur Rajdev, Senior Director, Head of Architecture, AI & Automation, The Baldwin Group

A cornerstone of the platform is its dynamic taxonomy system, which allows business users to describe documents and their relevant fields in plain language. These descriptions are then converted into AI-generated prompts that automate the document processing workflow. This modular, microservices-based design means that different document types—whether they require classification, extraction, or both—can be handled seamlessly.

Building buy-in across the enterprise

Achieving early buy-in was essential to setting the stage for the larger GenAI platform initiative. Baldwin’s leadership, particularly its CIO, played a critical role in fostering a culture of innovation and trust in GenAI. A key tool in driving internal engagement was the Baldwin Copilot, an AI chatbot integrated with the GenAI platform. Initially launched as a productivity tool for internal teams—helping with tasks like drafting emails and job descriptions—the Copilot quickly gained traction across the organization. Its success has built excitement for Baldwin’s broader GenAI initiatives.

The early results from these internal tools have been promising. The Copilot has not only improved efficiency but also offloaded significant overhead from teams such as HR, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks. With this success, business units across Baldwin are increasingly requesting to integrate their workflows with the GenAI platform, recognizing its potential to drive both operational efficiencies and revenue growth.

The implementation of the GenAI platform is following a phased rollout, beginning with the design and deployment of the foundational components. Initial proof-of-concept (POC) phases focused on demonstrating the platform’s ability to handle high-volume document processing, particularly in Baldwin’s commercial insurance division. With each iteration, Persistent and Baldwin refined the platform’s capabilities, continually integrating feedback from both business and operations teams.

Future outlook: Pioneering the ‘brokerage of the future’

While the GenAI platform is already delivering measurable value, Baldwin’s vision extends far beyond its current capabilities. The goal is to expand the platform’s capabilities to handle 95% of all insurance-related document use cases, leaving only the most complex 5%—such as multi-page, heavily nuanced documents—to be tackled through more advanced techniques such as model fine-tuning.

The platform’s scalability opens up the possibility for Baldwin to eventually productize the solution, offering it as a service to other brokers facing similar challenges. Given the enthusiasm from Baldwin’s business units and the broader insurance community, there is clear potential for this platform to set a new industry standard.

Exhibit 2: Key outcomes include enhanced advisor experience, accelerated time to revenue, and optimized processes

Source: Persistent, 2024

The long-term impact of this platform will be felt across Baldwin’s operations, from faster time-to-revenue through real-time data processing to improved client interactions via enhanced advisor decision-making (see Exhibit 2). With the GenAI foundation in place, Baldwin is well-positioned to lead the insurance brokerage industry into a new era, where AI plays a central role in business transformation.

We’re now thinking of creating a small pod structure of 2–3 member teams, maybe 7–8 pods, to interact with each request from the business for new use cases… We don’t want them to wait. The next phase of execution will really show the power of the platform. A lot of excitement within the Baldwin group. We just recently completed a detailed strategy session with the leadership on the brokerage of the future. The use cases, outcomes, and experiences are so closely aligned to what our pipeline can do.

— Mayur Rajdev, Senior Director, Head of Architecture, AI & Automation, The Baldwin Group

A strategic blueprint for AI-driven business transformation

Baldwin’s partnership with Persistent has definitively become strategic, enabling the firm to accelerate its GenAI journey while aligning it with broader business goals. One of the platform’s most critical features is its ability to operate within the confines of responsible AI. Baldwin has built transparency and compliance mechanisms directly into the system, ensuring that AI-generated outputs can be traced and audited—a crucial consideration in a heavily regulated industry such as insurance.

Cultural buy-in has also been instrumental. Baldwin has focused on embedding GenAI into the company’s fabric, not as a standalone tech project but as a fundamental shift in how the business operates. This focus on change management, talent development, and fostering trust in AI’s capabilities will be critical to the platform’s success.

Persistent, for its part, has brought significant expertise and flexibility to the table. By ensuring that the GenAI platform is model agnostic and adaptable, it helped Baldwin future-proof its investment. As new AI models emerge, Baldwin can integrate them seamlessly without overhauling its existing infrastructure.

The Bottom Line: Baldwin’s bold embrace of GenAI is not just transforming its operations—it’s setting a new benchmark for the insurance industry.

Insurance carriers and brokers have the opportunity to ‘go big’ with GenAI, given the complexity and volume of documents involved in key processes—this is your call to arms to proactively investigate an enterprise-wide solution. With a robust GenAI platform that redefines how brokers handle documents, Baldwin is poised to unlock unprecedented value and set the standard for how AI can be a game-changer for the future of insurance brokerage.