Lance LaCoe, President & CEO of CARS Protection Plus, is bringing a live claims-operation case study to Detroit. For leaders evaluating AI warranty use cases, it is an opportunity to examine how a business is applying the technology to the decisions its claims teams make every day.
LaCoe and Ted Danner, Senior Director Warranty & Service Contract AI Solutions at Circuitry.ai, will continue the conversation from the June 12 AI-SWLM Think Tank Showcase at the 2026 Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit.
Their session, “From Manual Claims to Warranty Decision Intelligence: Lessons from a Live Claims Operation,” examines the work of connecting evidence, coverage, repair information, history and decision logic. It will explore practical applications, lessons learned and return on investment as CARS Protection Plus moves toward governed automation.
The case opens a wider discussion across seven speakers with different operating and technology perspectives: what has AI actually made possible, what does it take to implement, and where must humans remain involved?
Start with the operating experience
For a senior leader, the questions go beyond how quickly a claim can move. How is decision quality assessed? What happens when evidence is incomplete? Which decisions can be automated, and who remains accountable for exceptions?
The CARS Protection Plus case gives attendees a specific operating context in which to ask those questions. It also provides a way to assess the other AI perspectives across the Summit: how would this approach perform within the requirements of our own business?
Where should humans stay in the loop?
Wayne Mitchell, Global Senior Vice President Business Development at Sedgwick, and Craig Stack, Co-Founder & President at Truepic, will examine what AI should decide, what it should recommend and where human judgment is essential.
AI can narrow a field of evidence, identify an inconsistency or help a reviewer decide where to look first. It cannot remove the need to interpret context, challenge an incomplete conclusion or take responsibility for the action that follows.
For executives, the distinction belongs in the design of the process: who can challenge a result, what evidence they can access and when a decision must be escalated.
Can better detection prevent cost?
Mark Abbott, Client Executive at Pegasystems, will explore “The Warranty Paradox: Better detection, higher costs” and “Stop the Claim Before It Starts.”
Together, these discussions invite leaders to look beyond detection as a performance measure. An earlier warning is useful when the organization can act on it. Otherwise, it may create more review work without preventing the problem that generated it.
What changes in warranty and supplier quality?
Uma Boddapati, Senior Warranty Manager at Sensata, will lead “Beyond the Spreadsheet: putting AI to work in warranty & supplier quality.”
For leaders responsible for both warranty performance and supplier relationships, this is a chance to examine where AI can support analysis and where the underlying evidence still needs investigation. The question to bring is which decision the business needs to improve, not simply which spreadsheet it wants to replace.
What has worked, and what has disappointed?
James Kiriazes, Director Customer Quality Engineering at Bridgestone, brings a candid perspective to “The Curse of AI Island: Do the Treasures Promised by AI Really Exist?”. He will detail his AI journey launching a dealer portal and AI-powered customer chatbot.
In his current pre-Summit interview, Kiriazes describes useful results in administrative tasks and call-center screening or triage, alongside disappointment when wider promises did not match the results.
“If the treasure exists, it won’t give itself up without an effort” he says.
His advice to attendees is direct: “Know if your application is already working somewhere else or if you’d be the first trying to incorporate AI into your existing processes.”
That is a useful question to bring to Detroit: are you evaluating an established application, or committing your organization to the work of proving a new one?
Continue the discussion in Detroit
The AI-SWLM Think Tank dinner, Summit sessions and peer discussions give attendees opportunities to compare these experiences with their own priorities and question the assumptions behind a proposed investment. Agenda time has also been allocated so that each of the 6 Leadership Xchange Groups will also enjoy an interactive individual working session with the AI-SWLM Think Tank.
The 6th annual Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit takes place October 19–21, 2026, at The Westin Southfield Detroit.
