Can artificial intelligence help you drive better and avoid accidents on the road? Discovery Group thinks so.
Discovery Insure’s new Vitality Drive Advanced Driving Instructor (ADI) is an AI-powered tool aimed at helping improve driver behaviour and minimise risk for road users. ADI uses AI to create hyper-personalised goals for drivers, with personalised rewards.
Speaking to TechCentral on Monday, Discovery Insure CEO Robert Attwell said the company’s reliance on a combination of telematic data, research and generative AI is helping reduce overall risk in the company’s client portfolio.
“We believe that the nature of risk is changing rapidly and technology is absolutely critical to ensuring that we can manage that risk, change that risk and then provide personal behaviour changes,” said Attwell.
“There is an inherent bias where everyone believes they are a better driver than they actually are, and without technology to show you that maybe you are a below average driver, we cannot really encourage behaviour change.”
ADI follows similar principles to the Personal Health Pathways launched by Discovery Health in March last year. Attwell said insights from the medical insurance business have shown that members are more responsive to personalised and specific behavioural cues rather than general goals such as “eat healthier” or “become a better driver”. ADI’s behavioural prompts include the language used to speak to different customers based on factors such as their age.
Smart tag
Like Personal Health Pathways, ADI relies hardware to collect user data and provide insights. Whereas Personal Health Pathways uses wearables such as smartwatches and smart rings, ADI uses an in-vehicle smart tag alongside a user’s cellphone via the Discovery Insure app. The tag was co-developed by Discovery Insure and Cambridge Mobile Telematics, in which Discovery has an equity stake.
According to Attwell, the combination of the two devices is important for combating what has grown to be the number one cause of road accidents in South Africa: cellphone use while driving.
“We can detect if the G-force profile of your phone is different to that of the tag, meaning that you are picking it up while you drive. That tells us that you are not using your phone hands free,” said Attwell.
Read: Discovery turns to AI for ‘hyper-personalised health care’
Prompts are given to drivers using in-car entertainment integrations to ensure they are reminded of desired behaviour without having to pick up their phones. More detailed analysis of driving habits and broader goals is possible via the Discovery Insure app – when users are not driving.
Examples of these insights may include an observation that every weekday morning, on a particular stretch of road, a driver engages in speeding or harsh braking. ADI will then come up with a goal to change the behaviour by urging the driver to focus on that issue. A reward of Discovery Miles is attached to the successful completion of that goal.
Attwell said another insight gained from research – as well as how Discovery Health customers have responded to the Personal Health Pathways programme – is based on the concept of reward elasticity: that different people will respond with different levels of enthusiasm to the same goal, depending on the reward given. This allows ADI to supplement individualised goals and execution plans with individual rewards to maximise the likelihood of completion.
One of the challenges of Discovery’s behavioural model is that users typically respond to new tools like ADI with immediate behavioural changes while the allure of new rewards is fresh in their minds. Users who are new to the Discovery Drive programme typically remain cognisant of the fact their behaviour is being observed in the first 30 days of use. According to Attwell, there is a benefit to this when it comes to driving behaviour that other aspects of Discovery’s business do not benefit from as greatly.
“The nice thing about driving is that you can improve behaviour today and be a better risk today. It is quite different to health outcomes where if you exercise today, it reduces your long-term mortality,” said Attwell.
Despite the immediate benefits, the greatest advantage for both Discovery and its clients is realised when positive behaviour is sustained over long periods. In this case, Discovery gets to lower overall portfolio risk by inching each of its customers towards an idealised profile. Customers benefit from greater rewards such as rebates on fuel spend that in some instances equate to the amount spent on their monthly insurance premiums. Ultimately, according to Attwell, this drives a greater societal benefit, too.
“We see a lower frequency and severity of accidents for clients with a higher Vitality Drive status. This tells us that the actuarial dynamics of the programme are completely sound. But you only get outcomes of things you can measure, so technology is absolutely critical to our success,” said Attwell. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
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