SMART I.T. Services, Inc.

10/02/2026

🎉 Congratulations to Jennifer Brodak of Morrow Insurance of North Carolina, the winner of our large monitor giveaway at Applied Net 2026! Jennifer stopped by to collect her prize. Enjoy your new monitor, Jennifer!

As Applied Net 2026 comes to a close, we’re grateful for the chance to catch up with longtime friends and customers, meet new faces, and share so many good conversations.

We learned a lot, and we hope you left our booth with a few useful ideas, too. That exchange of ideas is one of the best parts of getting together with this community.

Thank you to everyone who spent time with the SMART Services team. We’re looking forward to putting those ideas to work and making the year ahead a great one—together.

09/29/2026

We’re at Applied Net 2026 in the Washington, D.C., area—and we’re going BIG at Booth 101! 🎉

How big? We’re giving away a whopping 55-inch Samsung monitor that can also be used as a TV! 📺 We’ll even ship it to the winner—no need to negotiate with the flight attendant about your “carry-on.” ✈️😂

While you’re here, meet Security Sentinel and Aidan Helper, working together to keep your network protected and your team productive!

⚡️ Serious speed and reliability. Security Sentinel supports internet speeds up to 20 Gbps, with options to combine multiple internet connections for greater total capacity and backup connectivity if a connection goes down.

🔒 Protection that takes action. Security Sentinel provides advanced firewall protection and continuously monitors multiple layers of your network’s security. When it detects unusual or suspicious activity, it immediately begins working to address and remediate the issue.

🛠 Continuous network care. Keeps your network tuned and running smoothly to help prevent slowdowns and interruptions.

🤖 Meet Aidan Helper. Your AI helper right on your computer, ready to help diagnose and resolve common technology problems quickly—often without waiting for human intervention.

It all adds up to a simple goal: less downtime, fewer disruptions, and more time to focus on your business.

Stop by Booth 101, see Security Sentinel and Aidan Helper in action, and find out how to enter the giveaway!

09/21/2026

We enjoyed attending InsurEXPO26 in Winston-Salem and having a booth at the event.

With nearly 900 people in attendance, InsurEXPO26 was a record-breaking event.

We’ve attended a lot of state Big “I” events, and this was by far one of the best. The turnout, conversations, and energy throughout the show were outstanding.

Thank you to the Independent Insurance Agents of North Carolina and everyone who stopped by to talk with Smart Services about practical IT, cybersecurity, AI, and workflow automation for independent insurance agencies.

Congratulations to Natalie from Johnson Insurance on winning the Samsung widescreen monitor!

We were proud to participate as a Platinum Partner and look forward to staying connected.

09/10/2026

Insurance agencies are being told to adopt AI—but the hard part is making it useful, secure, and economical.

After building a local AI cluster, we came away with a practical lesson: agency AI needs more than a powerful model. It needs clean data, clear use cases, secure access, and a deliberate approach to cost and governance.

Read the full article: https://smartservices.com/blog/what-building-a-local-ai-cluster-taught-me-about-ai-for-insurance-agencies/

SMART Services founder Jerry Fetty shares what a hands-on local AI cluster build taught him about cost control, open models, governance, and practical AI for independent insurance agencies.

08/27/2026

Your next agency employee might be an AI agent.

The agencies that benefit most will not be the ones that give AI broad access on day one. They will be the ones that build the foundation first: clean data, documented workflows, clear guardrails, controlled access, and human oversight.

Our latest SMARTer Thinking article explains how insurance agencies can prepare for human + agent teams without losing the judgment, security, and accountability that matter most.

Read it here: https://smartservices.com/blog/your-next-agency-employee-might-be-an-ai-agent-is-your-agency-ready/

07/17/2026

Your agency management system is only as strong as the data inside it.
When records are incomplete, inconsistent, duplicated, or stale, the impact reaches client service, renewals, reporting, workflow reliability, and every automation or AI initiative built on top of the system.
Before expecting the next technology layer to solve the problem, start with the foundation: reliable records, clear standards, disciplined workflows, and ownership of data quality.
Read the article: https://smartservices.com/blog/agency-management-system-data-quality/

By Jerry Fetty

07/01/2026

AI will not create an advantage for an insurance agency if the agency's data, documents, workflows, and vendor systems are scattered everywhere.

The real first step is getting clear on what knowledge the agency already has, where it lives, and how it can be used safely.

Our latest article looks at why agency data is becoming the foundation for future AI readiness.

Read it here:

Insurance agency AI readiness starts with clean data, vendor clarity, and institutional knowledge. Learn how agency data becomes a future AI advantage.

06/26/2026

Can your agency grow without adding more people?

Use our AI Capacity Planning Tool to see where your team could recover time and create more capacity.

https://airoi.smartservices.ai/

06/19/2026

Your Agency Management System can change. The data follows.

For independent insurance agencies, that data is not just technical detail. It is the agency's business memory: clients, policies, activities, documents, renewals, service history, accounting context, and decisions.

AI and automation can help, but only when the agency has a trusted source of truth underneath them. If the AMS is incomplete, inconsistent, or worked around, every new tool has to fight the same old problem.

Clean data. Clear processes. Better decisions. Stronger agency.

Read the full article:

Your Agency Management System should be the trusted source of truth before AI and automation can deliver real value. Clean data, clear processes, and disciplined governance make the difference.

06/09/2026

Microsoft 365 security is not set-and-forget.

The FBI's Kali365 warning is a good reminder for insurance agencies: MFA still matters, but it is not the whole access-security strategy anymore.

If an attacker tricks a user into approving access through a legitimate Microsoft flow, the risk can reach Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, client communication, internal files, and agency operations.

Agency owners do not need to become Microsoft engineers. But they should know whether device code flow, Conditional Access, app consent, mobile access, permissions, and monitoring have been reviewed recently.

Read the full article:

The FBI warning about Kali365 is a timely reminder for insurance agencies to review Microsoft 365 device code flow, Conditional Access, app approvals, monitoring, and staff training.