Ardcarne Life Assurance / BB-Demo – Demo
Callcompleted
Ardcarne Life Assurance: documents · 2026-02-23 14:00
Demo on anonymised Ardcarne data went well. The COO, Ronan Tierney, backed moving to the security review. Open items are logging detail, the delivery plan and the review. The working figure remains £155,000 for the whole deal.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Demo on anonymised Ardcarne data went well. The COO, Ronan Tierney, backed moving to the security review. Open items are logging detail, the delivery plan and the review. The working figure remains £155,000 for the whole deal.
What happened: Hannah Lowe showed the broker firm page, a cited chat answer, role-based access and search. Niamh Costello tested sceptically on behalf of the team leads.
Customer view: Ronan said a page is right and told Niamh she has his support to proceed to the security review. Niamh said the access control held, at least in the demo.
Commercial: Matteo Ricci repeated £155,000 as total value including implementation, not the annual price. Nothing is final until an executed order form, and the expected close is 30 Jun 2026.
Watch: Logging fields and retention are unconfirmed, no weeks are committed, and the formal security review has not started.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Demo, security review next
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Matteo Ricci sends Ronan a one-page summary and a written proposal splitting implementation and subscription.
- Hannah Lowe confirms logging fields and retention in writing and starts the security review pack.
- Niamh Costello introduces the risk colleague and names the owner of the broker firm list.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Delivery plan must be realistic and engineering-agreed, or trust built so far is at risk.
- Logging fields and retention for DORA are unconfirmed and the formal security review has not started.
- The 30 Jun 2026 close depends on the security review and the risk colleague's outsourcing work.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- The COO has given his support to proceed, which clears the way to the security review.
- Dashboards builder and search resonated with distribution and customer service leads, showing the value of an Enterprise rollout.
Transcript
Hannah Lowe NoneHello, can everyone hear me? I'll share my screen in a moment.
Niamh Costello NoneGood afternoon, Hannah. Yes, I can hear you. Ronan is just joining, I can see him in the lobby.
Ronan Tierney NoneAfternoon all. Sorry, I was held up. What decision do you need from me today?
Matteo Ricci NoneGood afternoon, Ronan, and thank you for joining. The honest answer is none today. This is a demo for Niamh and the distribution and customer service teams. I have asked Hannah to keep the first part short so you can see what it is and decide whether you need to stay.- Ronan Tierney NoneGood. Is Declan content so far?
- Niamh Costello NoneHe has seen the architecture note and he has questions, which is a good sign. The formal security review has not started. I will not pretend otherwise.
- Matteo Ricci NoneAnd I would rather you heard it from me, Ronan: nothing we show today replaces that review. It is a demo of the product. The review is separate and it comes next.
- Ronan Tierney NoneUnderstood. Carry on.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThanks. So, a quick framing, and then I will show you rather than tell you. Niamh gave me three things she wanted to see: one page per broker firm, a plain-language question with an answer that shows its sources, and how access is controlled. I will go in that order. The data you are about to see is the sample your team shared, anonymised, so these are your records and not my invented ones.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. And just to be clear for the recording, I am asking the questions that the distribution and customer service leads would ask, since they could not all be here live. So if I sound sceptical, that is on purpose.
- Hannah Lowe NonePlease be sceptical, it is more useful. Right, sharing now. Can you see my screen, a page headed with a broker firm name?
- Niamh Costello NoneYes, I can see it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThis is a single broker firm. At the top you have the firm, its contacts, and the relationship manager. Below that, the policies linked to it from the policy system, then recent calls, then helpdesk tickets, then open issues. Every one of those items carries a small source label, so you can see which system it came from.
- Niamh Costello NoneWhat does good look like for the brokers? I want to know what a customer service agent would do with this at the moment a broker rings.
- Hannah Lowe NoneLet me do exactly that. Imagine the broker rings about a delayed transfer. The agent opens the firm page and the open issues box. Here, you can see a commission query logged by the relationship manager a few days ago, flagged as unresolved. The agent now knows the firm is already a bit frustrated before saying a word.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is the exact scenario I described. Where does that commission note come from, though? The CRM?
- Hannah Lowe NoneYes, from the CRM, and you can see the label says so. If I click it, it takes me back to the original record. The brain does not own the fact, it points at where the fact lives.
- Ronan Tierney NoneIs that important, that it points back?
- Niamh Costello NoneFor us, yes, Ronan. It is the difference between an answer and an answer I can defend to the regulator.
- Ronan Tierney NoneGood. Then I see it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneNow the part you called the mess. In the sample, one broker firm appears under two slightly different names, one in the helpdesk and one in the policy system. Left alone, the brain would show two firms. Here is how that looks before the match, and here it is after. The match is recorded, with who made it and when, so it is not a silent guess.
- Niamh Costello NoneWho makes the match? A person, or the system?
- Hannah Lowe NoneTo be precise, the system proposes and a person confirms for anything it is not sure of. In implementation we do the bulk of this with you, and afterwards a named person on your side owns the list. I said that on the first call and I will keep saying it, because it is what stops the drift.
- Matteo Ricci NoneNiamh, that is the owner we spoke about. It does not need to be a full-time role.
- Niamh Costello NoneUnderstood. We can name someone in distribution operations. Let's not over-engineer it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneAgreed. Let me move to the second thing. I will use the chat. I am typing: which broker firms have raised the same issue more than once in the sample data?
- Hannah Lowe NoneIt is thinking... and there it is. It lists a handful of firms, and for each one it shows the issue, the two or more occasions, and the sources. Two come from the helpdesk, one from a recorded call. If I open the first one, you can see the call excerpt and the ticket side by side.
- Niamh Costello NoneDoes it ever just make something up?
- Hannah Lowe NoneIt can be wrong, and I will not tell you otherwise. What we do is make every statement traceable, so a wrong answer is easy to spot and easy to challenge. The short answer is: it is built to cite, not to improvise. The longer answer is that quality depends on the sources being current and the matching being right, which circles back to ownership.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat's a straight answer, thank you.
- Ronan Tierney NoneNiamh, I have seen enough of the shape. What is the board risk in this?
- Niamh Costello NoneThe risk is the data and the supplier, not the idea. If the review is satisfactory and the data stays in our own Snowflake account, I think it is manageable. The bigger risk is the delivery plan, and I want that to be realistic.
- Matteo Ricci NoneMay I add one thing, Ronan, since you asked about risk? The operational resilience side will be part of the security review and of the outsourcing arrangements your risk colleague will look at. I will send a one-page summary after this call that states plainly what is settled and what is still open.
- Ronan Tierney NoneA page is right. Let's proceed to the security review when Niamh is ready. I will leave you to the rest. Niamh, you have my support to continue.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you, Ronan.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThank you for your time, Ronan.
- Ronan Tierney NoneRonan. Goodbye.
- Hannah Lowe NoneRight. Third thing, access. This is the part I would like your CISO to see in detail, so I will go through it carefully. Let me switch to the administration view.
- Hannah Lowe NoneHere you define roles. In this example I have a relationship manager role and a customer service agent role. The agent role can see the firm page, contacts and tickets, but I have switched off the commission notes. Now I will log in as an agent in another window, so you can see the difference.
- Hannah Lowe NoneAs the agent, the firm page loads, the tickets are there, and the commission section is simply absent. It does not show a greyed-out box with a hint of what is behind it.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood, that was my worry. Does it apply to the chat as well? If an agent asks about commission, does the brain tell them?
- Hannah Lowe NoneLet me test that live, because I would rather show you than assure you. I am asking as the agent: what commission queries has this firm raised?
- Hannah Lowe NoneAnd it answers that it has no information it can share on that. So the permission holds in the chat too. To be precise, that is for this role in this configuration. In your environment the roles would be designed with you and tested in the security review, and I would not ask you to take today's demo as the evidence.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is the right way to say it. I need my CISO to run his own tests.
- Matteo Ricci NoneAnd he will have our support for that. Hannah handles it, and she checks anything she is unsure of before she replies.
- Niamh Costello NoneCan I ask about logging? Who asked what, and when. Under DORA I need to be able to show it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThere is a usage record of questions asked and by whom. I do not want to overstate what is in it, so let me do this: I will confirm the exact fields and retention with our head of security and put it in writing, in the answers to your CISO's questions. I would rather give you a correct answer in a few days than a confident one now.
- Niamh Costello NoneFine. Please do that. It is one of the things I will want in the document.
- Hannah Lowe NoneNoted, I have it on my list. Now, since Ronan has gone, let me show you one more thing that is directly aimed at the customer service lead. It is search. I will type a broker firm name with a typo.
- Hannah Lowe NoneIt still finds the firm, and it shows the nearest matches. Then if I search a phrase, say transfer delay, it brings back tickets, call excerpts and notes that mention it, ranked, and it labels each source.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat would save an agent real time. They currently open three systems and hope.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThat is the kind of thing worth measuring early. If we can agree before the start what good looks like, say how long an agent takes to find a firm's history, then you will have your own evidence and not ours.
- Niamh Costello NoneI like that. Let's pick a measure that is not too clever. What the agent needs, and how long it takes.
- Hannah Lowe NoneWe can do that in the first weeks. Can I show one last thing, the dashboards builder? It is for the distribution lead more than customer service.
- Hannah Lowe NoneHere I build a simple view of broker firms by number of open issues. It takes a minute. I choose the source, group by firm, and filter to unresolved. And there it is. It is not fancy, but your own people can build and change these without us.
- Niamh Costello NoneSo distribution could make its own view of the firms that need attention.
- Hannah Lowe NoneYes, which is a good example of the brain being used rather than just installed. The more your teams build, the more embedded it becomes.
- Niamh Costello NoneRight. Let me ask the commercial question while Matteo is here. Where do we stand on the plan and the price?
- Matteo Ricci NoneThank you for asking directly. The working figure we discussed earlier remains £155,000 for the whole deal, which is the total value including the one-off implementation. It is not the annual price on its own, and I will put the split in the written proposal so you can see each part. Nothing is final until it is in an executed order form, and I will not pretend otherwise.
- Niamh Costello NoneUnderstood. And the timing: you were aiming at the end of June?
- Matteo Ricci NoneThe expected close we are working to is 30 Jun 2026. I will be candid that this depends on the security review and on your risk colleague's work, not just on us. If either runs long, I will tell you early.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is what I need from a vendor. Tell me early.
- Niamh Costello NoneHannah, one more technical thing, and it is for my own head more than anyone's. How long before something real is running? I do not want a number you cannot defend, just the shape.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThe shape is this. Enterprise implementation is fixed in scope and runs in phases: connect the first sources, do the broker matching, build the firm page, then add the access design and the review items. I do not want to name weeks until engineering has agreed a plan against your actual systems, and Matteo has said the same. But I will write the phases down with a draft sequence, and mark clearly what is assumed.
- Matteo Ricci NoneI will add that anything promised in the order form about connectors going live carries a commitment, so the plan has to be one we can stand behind. That is why I will not rush it.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. Then we are aligned. Let me summarise what I have taken from today, so you can correct me. The broker page works the way I described. The chat cites its sources and the access control holds, at least in the demo. The open items are logging detail, the delivery plan, and the security review.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat is accurate. I would add one more: the matching ownership on your side. It is small, but it matters.
- Niamh Costello NoneYes. I will name someone.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThen the next steps are these. I send the one-page summary for Ronan, plus the written proposal with the split between implementation and the subscription. Hannah sends the answers on logging and starts the security review pack for your CISO. And you, Niamh, introduce us to your risk colleague and name the owner for the broker list.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat is clear. I will speak to the leads tomorrow and come back with any questions they have after watching the recording. I will also ask my CISO for a time to go through the review with Hannah.
- Hannah Lowe NonePlease do. I will keep the review pack in one place so nothing gets lost between emails.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you both. This was a good session, and I think the leads will find it recognisable, which is the point.
- Matteo Ricci NoneThank you, Niamh. Best regards, and we will speak soon.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThanks, Niamh. Speak soon.
- Niamh Costello NoneBest, both. Bye.
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