Putting AI-powered automation to work,
Gaya streamlines data and speeds the commercial quoting process
By Lori Widmer
What started as an idea by a student with a need became an AI-driven software company serving the insurance industry.
In 2021, Carl Ziadé and his co-founder, Jean-Pierre Vertil, were Stanford students who needed to get from Point A to Point B. However, Uber rides were far too expensive. When Vertil made a deal with a classmate to rent his car for the summer, he realized that there was a business need for such arrangements.
That initial car-sharing platform—Drivegaya—soon morphed into Gayafi, a car loan shopping platform. That soon led to the duo offering car insurance and car refinancing in one bundle. “While that business didn’t take off, the technology did,” says Ziadé, the company’s chief executive officer. “Agents quickly saw the potential for applying it to core insurance workflows.”
Fast forward to today. The duo is now offering its Gaya.ai software, an AI-powered automation tool that speeds up the quoting process for commercial insurance producers. “It was developed to solve a persistent challenge in the industry: the inefficiency of manually entering data across multiple carrier portals,” says Ziadé.
Gaya.ai up close
Like most technologies that are set to revolutionize an industry, Gaya.ai is powered by a simple need—to “supercopy” information, which captures all necessary data and pastes it automatically into carrier portals and PDFs. That, to Ziadé and Vertil, meant that development should take a different approach. “Instead of relying on complex integrations or APIs, we designed Gaya to work directly on top of carrier portals. This allows agents to extract client and policy data from websites and PDFs, whether it is declaration pages, quote sheets, or hand-written napkin drafts, and ‘superpaste’ it into forms with a single click—dramatically increasing quoting speed and accuracy,” Ziadé says.
The result: Manual, repetitive data entry that is part of the policy quoting process is eliminated. “Most agents spend hours copying and pasting information into different carrier systems, leading to inefficiencies and human errors,” says Ziadé. “Gaya solves this by using AI-powered automation to extract and input data seamlessly.
“Agents can instantly transfer information from applications, PDFs, and management systems into carrier portals and PDFs (think ACORD, supplemental documents, and proposals) with one click, making quoting both faster and more accurate.”
“Gaya operates as a plug-and-play browser extension. This means agents
can onboard and start using Gaya without needing to involve their IT team—
a huge advantage in keeping implementation low effort, high impact.”
—Carl Ziadé
Co-founder
Gaya
What to expect
Unlike traditional software applications, Ziadé says, Gaya doesn’t require IT integration, API connections, or AMS modifications. “Gaya operates as a plug-and-play browser extension. This means agents can onboard and start using Gaya without needing to involve their IT team—a huge advantage in keeping implementation low effort, high impact.”
Agencies simply install the extension, set up an account, and log in. “Most agents are fully operational within a day, eliminating the IT bottlenecks that typically slow down insurtech adoption,” Ziadé says. The end result is that agencies can expect to see increased quoting speed, reduced errors, and more time to grow business operations. “Gaya is a modern solution to an outdated problem, helping [agents] focus on what truly matters: serving their clients and growing their business.”
What users say
That solution is exactly what Phaedra Starr says her company was searching for. Starr, vice president and head of Marketplace at Heffernan Insurance Brokers, says with hundreds of quotes to process within their commercial division, the backlog of reviewing and re-entering information into one or more rating platforms was overwhelming. “The applications we receive may be our standard application, ACORD applications, or different carrier applications. My processing team has to read and search for the needed information which takes time,” Starr says.
Even if the team could get through the workload, there was always the potential to make errors when transferring information from one system to another. The company’s new system, then, had to solve the issue without being “too big and too broad” and had to be built by people who understood the insurance process.
“I want someone on their team to have some insurance experience or in the pilot period, really partner with us to understand insurance,” says Starr. “The lack of understanding of the insurance industry has led to misunderstandings, delays and, in many cases, failure of a pilot or implementation. So now I evaluate this in our initial conversations.”
She says her process also includes finding a provider to partner with and one who communicates well. Starr looks for a provider who has a long-term strategy or is invested in the solution for the long term. And, importantly, the solution has to fit within her budget. “I immediately liked and got along with Carl and his team at Gaya. They knew what they wanted to accomplish and have been responsive, open and generally great partners.”
“[The Gaya team was] quick to address any errors we encountered and provided
excellent hands-on support, guiding us through the tool’s features and
ensuring we understood how to use it effectively.”
—Phaedra Starr
Vice President and Head of Marketplace
Heffernan Insurance Brokers
From the outset, Starr says that Gaya delivered on its promise of easy implementation. “The tool itself is quite easy to navigate. What really stood out was the Gaya team’s responsiveness and helpfulness. They were quick to address any errors we encountered and provided excellent hands-on support, guiding us through the tool’s features and ensuring we understood how to use it effectively.”
The experience was a positive one, she says. “Gaya listened, knew exactly what problem they were solving, are starting with a specific use case and building from there.”
For agents and brokers looking for a way to improve their quoting and data-sharing process, Starr says that careful consideration of both the solution and the provider is essential. “With any AI implementation, there is always a training period—training of the AI technology to work with your specific business case. In order to be successful, you must choose partners that are willing to work with you diligently to train on your specific forms and documents.”
The benefits to her organization are noticeable. “We have been using Gaya for about six months now and it processes and reads about 80% of the information we need.” That, she says, has saved extensive amounts of time and effort, freeing up employees to grow and improve the business.
For more information:
Gaya
gaya.ai
The author
Lori Widmer is a Philadelphia-based writer and editor who specializes in insurance and risk management. BrokerTech Spotlight articles look at insurtech offerings from startups that have partnered with BrokerTech Ventures (BTV), a convening platform for brokers, carriers and wholesalers, and tech firms, and includes insight from other BTV member owners.
