Personalised AI coaching can help drivers change risky habits, a new Discovery Insure and Johns Hopkins University study finds

Sandton, 13 October 2026 – The corner one takes too fast. Harsh braking on a tense school run. The distraction a cellphone poses to driving. Road accidents are rarely random. Most are the result of driving behaviours such as these that, repeated trip after trip, become the habits that steadily increase accident risk over time.

Now, new research by Discovery Insure, Johns Hopkins University in the US, and UK-based behavioural consultancy Affective Mobility, has revealed a new approach to changing these behaviours as they occur: hyper-personalised, AI-powered coaching delivered at the point in each trip when it has the greatest impact, steadily reducing accident risk over time.

The study, titled “Personalisation: The next frontier in behavioural change. How habits and AI-driven personalisation are reshaping driving risk,” involved 5,000 drivers, 1.7 million trips, and 15 million kilometres of real-world driving data. Relative to a matched comparison group, drivers receiving personalised coaching achieved measurable improvements across five risky driving behaviours, with the largest improvement seen in cellphone use while driving.

• Cellphone use: 9%
• Harsh acceleration: 5%
• Harsh braking: 5%
• Harsh cornering: 4%
• Speeding: 3%

These improvements become meaningful over time. Because driving habits are repeated across millions of kilometres, even small shifts in behaviour can compound into a meaningful reduction in a driver’s overall exposure to risk.

Investigating shifting driver behaviour for the greatest safety impact

Robert Attwell, CEO of Discovery Insure, says: “For 15 years, we have worked to show that road accident risk can be reduced through targeted behavioural interventions matched with incentives – the essence of our Vitality Drive programme. Our most engaged drivers (at Diamond and Gold Vitality Drive status) have a fatality rate 74% lower than the South African rate and experience nearly 50% fewer accidents.”

"Over time, Discovery Insure has built an extensive base of driving data spanning 22 billion kilometres across 31.5 million client months. Against the backdrop of this rich dataset and the increasing availability of AI, we asked: could the individual behaviours behind risky driving habits be changed through deeper personalisation – actively preventing risk well ahead of harm occurring?"

To answer this, Discovery Insure's data capability was matched with Johns Hopkins University's academic expertise, supported by the Insight–Motivation–Action (IMA) framework developed by behavioural scientist Dr Neale Kinnear, founder of Affective Mobility.

Dr Kinnear explains, “The IMA framework helped us design coaching around what drivers need: insight into their own driving, motivation to improve and practical steps they can take. It gave the study a clear foundation in behavioural science and helped us test how AI-enabled personalised coaching could build on Discovery Insure’s already successful telematics programme.”

The 5,000 participating drivers were randomly assigned across experimental groups to compare four intervention strategies – coaching style (directive versus supportive), goal design (behaviour-based versus location-based), social benchmarking, and real-time alerts. For each driver, AI was used to identify priority behaviours, set achievable goals and deliver personalised coaching tailored to their driving patterns. Over four months, the system generated 23,000 personalised goals, and delivered 160,000 push notifications and voice alerts (for location-based goals), as well as 390,000 coaching messages.

Professor Jonathan Ehsani, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, reflects: "A clear pattern emerged: personalised coaching most improved driving behaviour and improvements lasted instead of fading over time.”

Turning research into real-world impact

In South Africa, up to 14,000 lives are lost on the roads each year, and over 100,000 people are injured or disabled. Road crashes cost the country an estimated R217 billion in 2024 alone (2.94% of GDP).

South Africa has set an ambitious but necessary target to reduce road fatalities by 45% by 2029 and 50% by 2030. However, according to the National Department of Transport, the country recorded only a 9% reduction between January and 4 October 2026.

Lebohang Ntwampe, Deputy Director-General: Road Transport at the National Department of Transport, said at the launch of the research: “While law enforcement remains a critical pillar of our road safety strategy, it is clear that enforcement alone will not deliver the level of change required. We must complement it with sustained behavioural change, greater accountability, and a collective commitment to protecting human life.

“Research into driver behaviour is therefore essential, as it strengthens our understanding of the factors that contribute to risky driving and helps us develop more targeted, evidence-based interventions.”

Historical research identifies five recurring habits – drinking and driving, cellphone use while driving, speeding, aggressive driving and lack of vehicle care – as leading contributors to three major causes of collisions: distracted driving, loss of vehicle control, and reduced vehicle safety. These account for 60% of global road fatalities.

Ehsani explains, “Through partnership – academia provides the rigour to test what works and industry the reach to deliver it at scale – we can take personalised coaching from a tested intervention to a tool that makes roads safer.”

The behavioural principles tested in the study informed Discovery Insure’s ‘Advanced Driving Instructor’ (ADI), an AI-powered driving coach launched in January 2026 as a proof of concept that identifies a driver's priority behaviour, sets personalised goals and delivers practical, timely coaching, including location-based feedback.

To date, drivers using ADI have brought their driving risk scores close to zero and maintained these improvements over time. They also develop safer driving habits once they receive personalised goals. Importantly, these positive changes have continued even when drivers do not fully achieve their goals.

“As a supporter of the UN Road Safety Fund, we know that making our roads safer takes collaboration. By bringing together insurers, researchers and government, we have an opportunity to change the driving habits that contribute to so many road deaths. And by working together, we can make a far greater impact than any one of us could achieve alone. That is the opportunity, not just for South Africa, but for the world.”

Read the full white paper.