Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Cars
  3. News

You can now shop for car insurance by chatting with a bot on Facebook Messenger

Albert Khoury
By


As Facebook continues to push and update its Messenger service to a growing audience, other companies are hopping on to see where the road goes. Insurify, which uses virtual agents for car insurance shopping, recently announced the launch of the first insurance comparison service on Messenger in the U.S.

With the closing of a $4.6 million funding round, led by MassMutual Ventures and Nationwide Ventures, in addition to existing investors, Insurify is introducing a new insurance shopping experience. The company’s patent-pending virtual agent, which is powered by artificial intelligence and natural language processing, lets you compare quotes through messages. The bot also gives advice for discounts and coverage that suit each driver’s needs.

Recommended Videos

Insurify“Our Facebook Messenger virtual agent experience is faster than any website or mobile app, and easier to use than any online form, said Snejina Zacharia, Insurify’s founder and CEO. “It’s a powerful example of how our technology will work on all other messaging services. Our vision is to continue to enhance the artificial intelligence and data integrations behind our virtual agent and train the algorithms to pass the insurance licensing exam.”

Related

Insurify launched in January 2016 and, according to a press release, has serviced over 1.5 million consumers seeking to compare insurance quotes. The company’s growth has increased exponentially and is expected to continue this year. Insurify is led by a team of MIT alumni, as well as veterans from TripAdvisor and KAYAK.

Insurify users are provided with data-driven recommendations, which enables them to compare personalized side-by-side quotes. The best matches take premium costs, reviews, discounts, customer service, and benefits into account.

Insurify car insurance appThe quotes can be viewed online and via Facebook Messenger. Changes in premium costs can be set to alert you through email or Messenger notifications. Insurify used 20,000 car insurance chat conversations to build its artificial intelligence platform.

Facebook users can upload a picture of their license plates, answer some questions, and receive multiple quotes in minutes.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Albert Khoury
Albert Khoury
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Al started his career at a downtown Manhattan publisher, and has since worked with digital and print publications. He's…
Facebook starts merging Instagram, Messenger chat features on iOS, Android
Instagram logo

Facebook has apparently started merging the chat services of Instagram and Messenger on mobile devices, following through with a plan that was revealed in early 2019.

For some people, a notification has popped up on the iOS and Android versions of Instagram, offering "a new way to message" while showing the photo-sharing app's icon alongside Messenger's. The notification, which offers users a choice of updating the app, also lists features such as a new colorful design, emoji reactions, swipe to reply, and the option of chatting with friends on Facebook.

Read more
Facebook now lets businesses charge for online events
facebook paid event image

Facebook is letting businesses charge money for live online events, which it says will help businesses stay afloat as the pandemic keeps customers away from storefronts.

With the new addition to the platform, page owners can host an event on Facebook and charge guests attendance fees.

Read more
You can now video chat with up to 32 people on Google Duo
Google Duo 32 person video calls

Google is once again hiking up the number of people you can video chat with on Duo, only three months after updating the limit to 12 from eight in March. On Google Chrome for desktops, users can now have as many as 32 people in a single group Duo call.

The new 32-person Duo calls are restricted to Google’s own browser since they leverage the latest issue of a technology called WebRTC for offering end-to-end encryption, which is only available on the latest versions of Chrome. Google hasn’t commented on whether it plans to eventually roll it out for other browsers like Firefox yet. We’ve reached out to the company for more information and we’ll update the story when we hear back.

Read more