There's a version of an advisory council that looks great on paper. Engaged partners, a packed agenda, and a highlight reel at the end. But looking good and being useful aren't always the same thing.
That's not what we built ACE to be.
Earlier this month, Openly hosted the Agency Council of Excellence in Nashville, Tennessee: two days with a group of independent agent partners who represent some of the most sophisticated homeowners books in the country. Agents who know our platform, know the market, and have the kind of relationship with us that makes honest conversation possible.
But showing up and asking agents what they think only means something if you actually do something about it. So before we got into this year's agenda, we did something we think every advisory council should do. We opened with last year's list.
Coming out of ACE 2025, we left with 37 action items, specific things agents told us needed to change and that we committed to addressing. By the time we sat down in Nashville this June, 35 were addressed or actively in progress, and we walked through each one in the room with the people who asked for them.
That accountability is the foundation everything else is built on, and it's also what makes agents willing to keep being honest with us. If you show up year after year with feedback that disappears, eventually people stop giving you the real kind. If you show up with a scorecard, the conversation changes.
This year's sessions covered five areas: the quoting experience, agent empowerment and control, billing and service, claims, and marketing and communications. We came in with questions—not presentations—and we left with a new list and a commitment to bring that same scorecard back to ACE in 2027. We also spent time on something agents are navigating in real time: exploring how AI is showing up in day-to-day agency operations and what that means for how independent agents work and grow.
To the 15 agency partners who made the trip: thank you. The candor is the point. Openly is built on the belief that the best decisions come from the people closest to the work, and in this business, that's the independent agent. We don't host ACE to validate what we're already doing; we host it because it makes us better, and because we owe it to the agents who trust us with their clients to keep proving that.
We'll be back with follow-through.
If you're an independent agent and want to learn more about what an Openly partnership looks like, visit our agents page.
