Redefining insurance workflows with AI that enables, not disrupts.

At this year’s BrokerTech Connect in Chicago, all eyes were on a fast-rising AI insurtech startup: StitchStudio, winner of the 2025 BrokerTech Innovator Award, presented by The BrokerTech Fund and ManchesterStory. For founders Santoash Rajaram and Karan Mishra, the recognition wasn’t just about one product or one pitch—it was about validating years of work to reimagine how artificial intelligence can actually deliver value to brokers and carriers.

“We’ve always believed AI in insurance has to be useful, explainable, and scalable,” said Mishra, StitchStudio’s CEO. “Winning this award was immediate ratification that the market agrees—and that we’re solving real problems brokers and carriers face every day.”

From Spraoi to Stitch

StitchStudio isn’t the team’s first venture. Rajaram and Mishra previously launched Spraoi, an AI-driven insurance platform acquired by FINEOS. That experience gave them both inspiration and conviction about where to focus next.

“At Spraoi, we saw how long and painful AI implementations in insurance could be,” recalled Rajaram, StitchStudio’s founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer, and former Engineer at Apple. “Every client deployment took six to twelve months. The reality is, AI has to be organizationally specific.  It will never work ‘out of the box’ in insurance.”

The breakthrough came with large language models (LLMs). Rajaram recognized an opportunity: instead of forcing clients to adapt to generic AI systems, Rajaram and Mishra hypothesized why not productize the process of tailoring AI models for each organization? StitchStudio’s platform does just that by breaking complex problems into smaller, predictable “automation units” that can be stitched together into workflows.

The result? Solutions that slot seamlessly into existing processes rather than disrupting them.

Making AI invisible (in the best way)

StitchStudio’s philosophy is simple: AI should feel like an invisible assistant, not a new system that employees have to learn or fear. Stitch has a wide collection of insurance-specific AI agents that can embed within existing processes and technology ecosystems. For instance, Stitch automates the pre-underwriting inquiry process for carriers. AI reads incoming emails, checks them against underwriting guidelines, drafts templated responses, and queues them for human review. What once required four people now takes one. For brokers, instead of manually consolidating proposals into a spreadsheet, brokers can simply forward emails to a Stitch-enabled inbox. Within minutes, they receive a standardized spreadsheet back—ready to share with clients.

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“In both cases, brokers and carriers don’t even leave their inbox,” explained Rajaram. “That’s why adoption is so high. We’re not trying to replace humans or disrupt workflows—we’re getting the mundane work done and empowering people to focus on the work that really matters.”

This approach is also where the company’s name comes from—stitching together AI agents that fit directly into everyday tasks to increase productivity.

A turning point with BrokerTech Ventures

While the vision for StitchStudio had been forming since 2021, the company’s trajectory changed in 2024 when it joined the BrokerTech Ventures (BTV) community.

Rajaram described BTV Mania, the cohort’s annual startup-carrier-broker summit, as a turning point. “It was a mind-blowingly good conference. 

“The conversations were open, collaborative, and candid in ways I’d never seen. Startups like us presented, then carriers and brokers debated our ideas right there in the room. That kind of feedback is invaluable.”

For Rajaram, the event provided external validation. “It was clear that people saw something special in Stitch. The consistent message we heard was, ‘You’re solving a challenge we actually care about.’ That was huge.”

At BrokerTech Connect in Chicago, the team felt the momentum accelerate even more. As Mishra explained, most conferences can quickly become an echo chamber—startups pitching while brokers and carriers listen politely but without deep engagement. “What struck me at BTC,” he said, “was it felt like we were out of the echo chamber. The market was telling us something, and we had a chance to validate that. Carriers and brokers were eager to talk with us.”

Instead of one-way pitches, BTC’s format put startups, brokers, and carriers in the same conversations, where attendees came with specific problem statements and were actively looking for solutions.

Rajaram described it as an unexpected opportunity. “I’ve never been a part of a room where startups, brokers, and carriers were talking about our product among themselves,” he recalled. “They were very open, collaborative, and even told us directly, ‘this makes sense.’ Several asked about next steps right then and there.” 

What the award means for StitchStudio

Winning the 2025 BrokerTech Innovator Award was both energizing and grounding for the young company. 

“On one hand, it was phenomenal for our team morale,” said Mishra. “They hear from us all the time about why our work matters, but hearing it directly from the industry was game-changing.”

It also forced the company to think bigger. “We’re less than a year old, but this recognition reminded us it’s time to start behaving like we’re in the big leagues,” Mishra added. “We’re building playbooks for clients, preparing to scale rapidly, and shaping our product to solve the last-mile in operationalizing AI across the enterprise that the industry is asking us to solve.”

Rajaram echoed that sentiment: “For me, this wasn’t just an award—it was proof that our approach of enabling, not disrupting is resonating. That’s our secret sauce.”

The future of AI in insurance

Looking ahead, StitchStudio sees AI as the industry’s largest transformation, greater than cloud computing and mobile, combined.

“Every carrier and broker has unique processes—like fingerprints,” said Mishra. “LLMs now allow us to read policy contracts and unlock operational efficiency in ways that weren’t possible before. We believe 60% of manual, repetitive work will be commoditized by AI. That frees organizations to focus on creating better products and delivering world-class customer experiences.”

From Rajaram’s perspective, that shift will expand, not shrink, opportunities. “Every major technology wave has grown the economy, not contracted it. By automating the tedious, we can redirect human energy toward building the future of insurance. We’re fulfilling our vision at Stitch: To help every insurance organization become as  high-performing and efficient as possible, driven by empowered and happy teams.”

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What’s next?

“It’s gratifying to know we’re on the right path,” said Rajaram. “Now the work is about doubling down, scaling responsibly, and continuing to stitch together technology that pushes the boundaries of human potential..”

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