Digital Insurance contacted insurance professionals to comment on artificial intelligence and insurtech trends for 2026.
Alton Kizziah, CEO, Beazley Security
As the interdependence on external software providers continues to expand, even well-secured organizations will find themselves exposed through their less secure partners.
We expect to see a rise in impactful third-party incidents as threat actors increasingly target external software providers, cloud platforms, and managed services that organizations commonly employ to streamline operations and reduce costs. Consequences will include disruptive widespread service outages when major platforms or industry vendors are down, as well as increasing numbers of data breaches and operational disruptions that result in costly and brand-impacting regulatory disclosure and client notification events. These risks will drive investments in increased focus on vendor risk management, deploying Zero Trust architectures, and improving supply chain resilience. As a result, third-party risk will become a board-level concern, driving investment in governance, continuous monitoring, and more rigorous oversight of external partnerships.
Greg Chandler, executive vice president of information technology, The Standard
In 2025, we have seen artificial intelligence become widely implemented across businesses. Many organizations in the insurance industry have taken the first step in AI adoption and have introduced tools to employees as a way to drive efficiency and optimize productivity in day-to-day operations.
While we expect AI to continue to be woven into workflows to increase employee efficiency, the businesses that will succeed with AI in 2026 will be the ones that leverage AI to solve the biggest problems that their organizations face. By leveraging AI to address the hardest, most impactful tasks, rather than focusing on the low-hanging fruit, businesses can identify the work impacting the bottom line and use AI to supercharge those results. These include applying AI technology to improve processes in the insurance industry like risk assessment, processing claims and providing timely status updates to customers. We expect the companies that are prioritizing outcomes over efficiency and identifying problems rather than forcing AI as a default solution to be differentiated against their peers.
In the insurance industry one significant area where AI has the potential to drive transformation is customer engagement. AI can now enhance the way businesses interact with customers and create solutions to improve the customer experience. Of course, alongside this immense potential, comes risk. We expect all eyes to be on customer relationships in 2026, as the human element becomes more important than ever. Successful AI implementation will maintain or grow companies' relationships with their customers while the businesses that use AI in a way that subtracts the human touch from the customer experience will suffer.
While 2025 was the year many businesses began to leverage AI, I expect 2026 to be the year when we see companies using AI effectively gain a striking competitive advantage. Specifically, we expect clear distinctions to be made between companies implementing an AI strategy focused on business outcomes compared to an approach centered around efficiency.
Brian Poppe, senior vice president of income and wealth planning at Mutual of Omaha
In 2026, AI and emerging technologies will continue reshaping the insurance landscape, though in more measured, practical ways than the hype might suggest. For the industry, this marks the transition from exploration to execution, as companies begin seeing efficiencies from their early AI investments while testing new strategies in customer engagement and distribution.
General AI implementations: Expect to see more insurers publicly highlight meaningful expense savings from applying AI to back-office operations. From claims processing to compliance and customer service support, AI will help streamline workflows and reduce manual tasks. These improvements will not only drive operational efficiency but also free up human capital for higher-value work, thus enhancing both productivity and profitability.
Customer-facing enhancements: While AI will revolutionize back-end processes, few insurance carriers are expected to implement AI in customer-facing ways in 2026. Chatbots and virtual assistants may improve sophistication, but the traditional distribution channels like agents, brokers and financial advisors will continue to be central to the customer relationship. As consumers still value human guidance, AI's role in customer interactions will enhance, not replace it.
What carriers can do to set themselves up for success:
To best position themselves for a strategic investment in AI, Mutual of Omaha found the most success in first raising awareness of AI's potential. Other insurers should focus on advocating for AI by viewing it as a "coworker" that makes legacy systems more usable and sustainable.
As younger professionals enter the workforce, insurers will look for those that combine data science skills with project management and user empathy. Employees' code literacy and user understanding will play a large role in the advancement of AI in the workplace.
Overall, 2026 will likely include smart integration of emerging tech as it becomes the new normal, and the companies that blend innovation with trust, efficiency, and thoughtful customer engagement will be the ones leading this next chapter.
Sarah Kim, partner at Centana Growth Partners
As we approach 2026, the insurance industry stands at a pivotal moment where artificial intelligence is no longer experimental – it may become a core driver of operational and strategic change. Over the next year, we may see AI move beyond incremental efficiency gains toward reshaping underwriting, claims, and customer engagement.
One of the most significant investment opportunities may be automated and streamlined claims management. Reducing cycle times from weeks to minutes could not only improve customer satisfaction but also unlock cost savings and scalability for carriers. Similarly, underwriting processes may accelerate dramatically as AI enables real-time risk assessment and data-driven decision-making.
Beyond speed, AI will enhance personalization and simplify buying and selling processes in an increasingly fragmented marketplace. Insurtech innovators are poised to deliver seamless experiences for both issuers and consumers, leveraging predictive analytics and conversational interfaces to improve engagement.
Rapid adoption brings challenges, and regulatory frameworks are still evolving, and concerns around bias, data privacy, and compliance will require robust governance. Explainable AI and transparency will be critical to gaining trust from regulators and consumers alike. Clear communication, such as how a claim decision was reached, is increasingly expected to become a requirement.
In 2026, insurtechs and carriers may not just focus on speed and a simplified buying process, but they may also prioritize explainable AI, transparency, and governance. Clear communication will be key to building enduring brands.
Success in 2026 may hinge on balancing automation with accountability. Carriers that pair speed and efficiency with transparency, explainability, and strong governance may be better positioned. AI in insurance is here to stay, but trust is likely to define the winners. Agents and carriers who serve consumers with precision and trust may be the most successful early on.
CJ Warne, State Farm Innovation Group Executive
At State Farm, we take great pride in the quality and speed of our customer service. Looking ahead to 2026, we believe AI adoption will accelerate and bring greater operational efficiency for insurance carriers. As AI evolves from a back-office tool to an interactive resource, carriers that strategically blend technology with personalized human oversight will drive meaningful industry change. This integration will deliver smarter products, enhanced experiences, and greater resilience in a rapidly evolving world.
Rick McCathron, president and CEO of Hippo
In 2026, insurers will continue to embed AI across the insurance value chain—from underwriting to claims and customer service. AI agents powered by multiple large language models will help engineers write and translate code, support customer service in real time, and continuously learn from user interactions.
As AI frameworks evolve, they'll assign models to specialized tasks like coding or communication and adapt to individual workflows and preferences. Insurers that effectively blend human intuition with machine intelligence—using AI, automation, and continuous monitoring—will deliver smarter, more personalized risk decisions and experiences, while elevating human judgment and strengthening customer trust.
Matt Gabriel, VP of group functions AI at Manulife Financial
In 2026, I expect we will begin to see some of the winners in the Insurtech space emerge – those companies that have invested in AI as a differentiator. I expect we will see offerings that improve customer engagement, create distribution efficiencies, and make life insurance easier to buy.
At Manulife and John Hancock, we are very focused on helping our customers live a longer, better life through innovations in our ownership experience. This is another space I expect we will see continued innovation in the industry in 2026 and beyond, leveraging AI to create more personalized experiences.
Rashid Galadanci, CEO and co-founder, Driver Technologies, Inc.
I would say that if data and AI can deliver embedded quotes instantly via an app consumers already use and trust, then they will enjoy that simple, fast insurance shopping experience. That said, whenever there's an issue—a claim, accident, incident requiring legal insight or law enforcement, repairs, or new vehicle purchasing—all of these experiences benefit significantly from a trusted, local-knowledge expert, human agent or advisor to pair alongside the digital experience.
Gemma Ros, CTO, TheZebra.com
2026 will be the year AI moves from pilot to production across insurance. We'll see real-time underwriting, dynamic pricing, and conversational experiences evolve from experiments to become the norm. I'm most excited about how AI can help decode policy language and empower consumers to make confident, informed choices in seconds instead of hours.
Belen Tokarski, COO and president, Mylo
The next wave of innovation in AI will focus on solving real challenges, empowering agents with tools that enhance decision-making and customer trust. Advanced technologies, such as AI, won't reach their full potential until insurance agencies fully integrate them into daily workflows. Today, there's a misalignment where senior executives approve AI initiatives, but frontline employees aren't truly involved or engaged. Closing this gap will be critical for turning technology investments into meaningful results.
Graham Topol, co-CEO and co-founder, MGT Insurance
In general, the commercial insurance industry will be very slow to adopt AI in 2026. Insurers who adopt AI will succeed and gain a clear lead. The most common applications for AI will be in customer service, though there are many more interesting use cases. We believe that great technology empowers great people. In an industry that has grown comfortable with the status quo, we're challenging complacency by focusing on what truly matters: our customers, our partners, and our team. I believe that AI without the expertise and the right people is an empty promise. AI is a tool that dramatically improves efficiency. What this means for insurance is an amplification of the underlying talent. If you have good people and decision-making, then AI will accelerate that.
Justin Ricketts, EVP, chief technology officer at Goosehead Insurance
In 2026, the insurance industry will finally see AI move from the realm of experimentation to true operational impact, with clients and agents feeling the full benefits. AI will dramatically shorten client service request fulfillment times, leading to an increase in agent efficiency and significantly faster client resolution. However, AI is far from replacing agents. It will act as a force multiplier, handling mundane service tasks, and freeing up agents so they can focus on building connections with clients.
Meg Herman, Goosehead Insurance agent, Hilton Head Island, SC
In 2026, insurance carriers will continue to employ AI to gather more detailed information about a potential risk. As this information becomes more precise and cost-effective to procure, expect carriers to rely heavily on this information to continue to insure and adjust pricing.
Jason Kaminsky, CEO, kWh Analytics
The growth of AI will lead to an explosion of opportunities for insurers. As industries such as energy and power, data centers, and specialty manufacturing expand to support AI capabilities, insurers will find new opportunities to provide coverages that ensure heightened demand and continuity of services are met. Specialized MGAs will be instrumental in the financing of AI-related infrastructure projects; if a project can't be insured, it can't be funded. Simultaneously, as companies incorporate AI into their operations, their risk profile changes, driving the need for specialty considerations in lines like cyber liability and professional E&O to mitigate emerging exposures.
Nicole Thompson, senior manager, data science, kWh Analytics
Insurers will evolve from using AI solely for operational efficiency, towards harnessing integrated data intelligence as a core differentiator. Leading firms will unify their modeling, underwriting, and claims expertise into continuously learning systems, allowing company-specific domain knowledge to persist and evolve. This will drive greater portfolio optimization, more consistent underwriting, and increasingly differentiated risk pricing. However, such systems also introduce challenges around decision transparency: if not carefully designed, they may impact underwriting in ways that are difficult to interpret, inviting scrutiny from internal stakeholders, reinsurers, and regulators. To mitigate these risks, insurers should invest in interpretable AI architectures with clear data lineages, robust validation frameworks, and transparent knowledge representations.
Joel Raedeke, chief technology and data science officer, Broadspire
As AI drives more claims automation, we will see more straight-through processing of low complexity claims in 2026.
Advances in AI are increasing the likelihood that some low-complexity claims will pass through all decision gates without requiring human intervention in 2026. In addition, return to work processes will at times be fully automated, including the first cases of agentic AI taking on the adjuster assistant role. As these automations develop, adjuster training will shift to address the growing need for AI literacy, interpretability, and judgment in direct use of AI.
Jessica Zuiker, VP, assistant national property practice lead, Amwins
We are seeing the majority of E&S carriers and MGA's adopting a range of new technologies. The most successful have clear AI guidelines and understand this is a constantly evolving space. They also ensure that there is human oversight in all decision making.
Brian Keller, VP data science and AI, LexisNexis Risk Solutions
As we look toward 2026, AI is poised to reshape how insurers across both personal and commercial lines assess risk, price policies, and resolve claims. From streamlining property insights to identifying evolving risk factors in real time, AI-driven solutions are helping the industry move beyond static underwriting to continuous, contextual decision-making. In today's claims environment, where speed, accuracy, and scalability are paramount, equipping both underwriters and adjusters with intelligence that learns and adapts will be essential to driving better outcomes and deeper customer trust.
Heather H. Wilson, CEO of CLARA Analytics
By 2026, the insurance industry will begin adopting a new generation of reasoning AI models capable of drawing logical inferences from complex, multi-source claims data. Unlike traditional automation, these systems will evaluate causality, weigh conflicting evidence, and generate transparent, auditable explanations for their recommendations. This shift will mark a turning point in claims operations, as carriers integrate cognitive AI tools that enhance decision quality, reduce leakage, and strengthen regulatory compliance. Over time, reasoning AI will redefine how insurers balance automation with accountability in the claims lifecycle.
Chris Newman, CEO at ACORD Solutions Group
Agentic AI is poised to redefine operations, with autonomous digital agents supporting data analysis, routine decisions, and data enrichment in underwriting and claims analysis. This will, in turn, empower human experts to focus on complex risk, strategy, and client relationships. With highly consumable data as a prerequisite for effective AI adoption, insurers will treat data standardization as the foundation of AI and Insurtech, not simply a back-office task. And the real-time exchange of that data through platforms like ACORD Solutions Group's ADEPT will unify insurers, reinsurers, and brokers into one intelligent trading network, turning today's fragmented processes into a truly seamless, collaborative digital ecosystem.
Bernard Regan, principal with Baker Tilly's forensic, litigation and valuation services practice
In 2026, expect to see an increased push toward smarter tools that can efficiently assess SMB risk profiles at scale, analyze exposures and tailor coverage levels to match the real risks these businesses face, all without driving premiums out of reach. Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are the backbone of every economy, yet they remain dangerously exposed to cyber risk. Increasingly, SMBs either buy inadequate coverage or forego cyber insurance altogether, leaving them without a safety net if disaster strikes. The challenge for insurers is that traditional underwriting isn't built for this segment: evaluating a cyber policy for a SMB requires the same diligence as for a large enterprise, but the premium return is far smaller. By leveraging AI-driven underwriting and automation, insurers can expand coverage to this underserved market, grow the overall premium pool and deliver much needed protection for businesses that form the heart of global economies.
Chris Wheeler, CISO, Resilience
The biggest challenge I see is that Generative AI and especially agentic AI is non-deterministic; ask the same question enough and you'll get different answers. That's a risky proposition when you're making decisions about someone's insurance coverage or claim. When implementing AI systems, insurers need to be cautious on fundamentals: a well-defined business need, rigorous testing, vetted source data, human oversight, and security guardrails, rather than racing to deploy AI just because their competitors are.
Matt Cullina, head of global cyber insurance business for TransUnion
AI's fighting on both sides of the cyber war. In 2026, the same tech used to launch threats will be needed to defend against these threats. To keep up, insurers are expected to lean in on AI in three big ways: intelligent logging to retain only the forensic details that matter; breach scoping to pinpoint exactly which customer data was exposed and reduce class-action claimants; and agentic AI to spot subtle risk patterns that humans might overlook.
Ryan Canning, SVP, management liability, Westfield Specialty
As AI-washing claims continue to impact the D&O landscape, there will be additional regulatory scrutiny and more lawsuits in the new year related to the accuracy of companies' AI representations. As a result, we expect to see more underwriters laser-focused on executives' references to and companies' public disclosures of AI capabilities. How companies message their AI-related strategies will be just as important as the incorporation and execution of their solutions in mitigating this risk.
Arjun Mangla, co-founder and CEO, Fulcrum
In 2026 and going forward, brokerages will compete on data. The top-performing firms will win not by hiring faster, but by learning faster. They'll harness clean, connected data to anticipate client needs, automate cross-sells, and drive sharper portfolio decisions. The question will shift from "How many producers?" to "How intelligently do you operate?"
Tim Morant, chief risk assessment officer, Munich Re Life US
Artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to streamline underwriting workflows, particularly in summarizing complex health data and identifying risk patterns. However, 2026 will underscore the importance of human oversight in interpreting nuanced cases. The most successful carriers will balance automation with human judgment, using AI to augment, not eliminate, underwriter expertise. Hybrid models will dominate, with AI handling routine tasks and humans managing exceptions and edge cases.
Max Drucker, CEO, Carpe Data
What's stopping insurers from embracing the most innovative tech solutions on the market? In many cases, it's the technology they already have. Over the past decade, risk-averse insurers have layered in new digital tools piece by piece. The result is a patchwork of siloed systems that don't communicate with each other, leaving IT teams stretched thin with integration backlogs that can drag on for months. This fragmented approach slows innovation, and it leaves insurers vulnerable. 2026 will be the year insurers strategically integrate their tech stack to accelerate the adoption of best-in-class solutions, reduce security risks, and future-proof IT resources.
Tracey Brown, SVP, general manager of distribution and compliance management, Vertafore
The compensation landscape is evolving beyond simple commissions. Agents are seeking better experiences like payment flexibility, digital tools, and meaningful incentive programs, and many are willing to change carriers to find them. Specialized and AI-driven technology will reshape how insurers design and manage compensation, enabling stronger and more transparent distribution partnerships. Success will come to those who treat compensation as part of the broader agent experience and align their investment with what agents value most.
Cayce Lynch, national managing partner at Tyson & Mendes Law Firm
In 2026, AI adoption will reshape both insurance claims and legal defense workflows to mitigate rising costs due to nuclear verdicts. Claims professionals will increasingly leverage AI in the investigation, triage and analysis stages of claims lifecycles to equip themselves, their defense counsel, and their insureds with data-driven insights to improve strategy decisions and identify nuclear risk – faster, earlier and with greater accuracy. Legal defense professionals' use of AI will also surge – in both traditional areas like document review and research, as well as in case analysis and strengthening defense strategies against plaintiffs' unjust claims and inflated damages requests.
Olivier Lafontaine, chief product officer at Equisoft
What's going to determine a company's success in the AI market is how they deliver tangible, beneficial solutions to carriers, especially those in the middle market who may not have the internal resources to build their own AI applications. The AI market will cool down and reward vendors with a solid value proposition or industry specific expertise.
The strongest AI insurtechs will have the guardrails in place to stabilize the outcomes of AI applications and ensure data privacy and the trust of stakeholders. The ability to trace and explain AI decision making in case of an audit or error will be essential, as well as bridging the gap between core capabilities and business problems.
Tony Marron, managing director, Liberty IT, Liberty Mutual Insurance
2026 will mark the insurance industry's transition from AI experimentation to scaled, measurable impact. After a year of agentic pilots, the focus now shifts to performance — integrating multi-agent systems into underwriting, claims, and customer engagement to enhance human decision-making rather than replace it.
Trust will define the next phase of Insurtech. As AI becomes embedded in core operations, customers and regulators will expect transparency, explainability, and resilience. Insurers that combine automation with accountability will earn credibility as well as efficiency.
The insurtech leaders of 2026 will be those that reinvent, not just automate, the value chain — blending intelligent orchestration with ethical oversight. Expect advances in AI-augmented cybersecurity, explainable analytics, and embedded protection models that make insurance more proactive, predictive, and personal than ever before.
Tim Johnson, insurance analyst at Aceable Insurance
Prediction: AI will amplify agents' impact, but never replace them.
By 2026, AI will be a central part of the insurance industry – much like it is now for many others. From the insurance side, we'll likely see it used more for simplifying workflows, speeding up policy creation, or even helping agents simulate real-world client scenarios. These tools will allow agents to deliver faster, more personalized services, giving them a competitive edge in a market where efficiency matters most.
However, it's important to remember that AI cannot replace human judgment or empathy, or consultative problem-solving. Clients still need guidance to navigate complex coverage decisions, understand the implications of their policies, and feel confident in their choices. Agents who strike the balance between embracing AI for their work while maintaining personal connections and expertise that machines can't replace will stand out as the most trusted advisors.
Bill Pieroni, global head of insurance strategy & AI at DXC
The global risk ecosystem is approaching an inflection point. By 2026, Agentic AI will move from selective pilots to broad operational deployment across underwriting, claims, distribution, and capital management. Early production environments already show up to 50 percent faster cycle times, 20 to 40 percent lower process costs, and measurable gains in decision accuracy and capital efficiency.
Agentic AI marks the shift from digital transformation to autonomous orchestration. Intelligent agents now perceive context, act independently, and learn continuously across interconnected systems. This creates a new basis of competition where execution speed and precision define leadership, and marginal cost per decision moves steadily toward zero.
2026 will separate those experimenting with AI from those building the foundation for structural advantage. The agenda ahead is clear:
Eliminate capability debt by unifying data, systems, and workflows into connected, responsive architectures.
Build organizational readiness through new roles, skills, and governance models that balance autonomy with control.
Establish scalable governance that ensures transparency, accountability, and regulatory confidence as autonomy expands.
The race to an agentic risk economy has begun. The question is not whether it will happen, but who will define its rules.
Mojgan Lefebvre, executive vice president and chief technology & operations officer for Travelers
AI is reshaping insurance from the inside out, not by replacing expertise, but by amplifying it. At Travelers, we're using AI to deepen underwriting insights, streamline claim resolution, and dramatically enhance our software development lifecycle. The real opportunity isn't in experimentation, it's in applying AI with discipline and scale to deliver better outcomes.
Talon Abernathy, senior staff writer, ValuePenguin by Lending Tree
In the coming year, we'll see increasing friction between consumers and insurance companies as major insurers outsource more of their claims processing capabilities to AI tools. Given the ongoing class-action lawsuit against UnitedHealthcare over their use of AI in denying health insurance claims, greater adoption of these programs may lead to unanticipated legal problems and, potentially, costly payouts to consumers.
Emma Werth, VP, underwriting & reinsurance, Cowbell
2026 will be the year in which straightforward risks will be completely automated through agentic AI systems that can digest applications, extract key information about controls and loss history, and generate quotes without any human intervention. However, the more complex risks will continue to require human underwriters who can navigate the 'art' of underwriting, those gray areas that require behavioral understanding and relationship management.
Insurance remains fundamentally a relationship business. While AI excels at the science of underwriting, it struggles with the nuanced decision-making that experienced underwriters bring to complex risks. The future isn't about replacing underwriters, it's about empowering them with better tools.
Rajeev Gupta, co-founder and CPO, Cowbell
The explosive growth of Generative AI has already begun to redefine industries, and cyber insurance is no exception. In 2026, we'll see the rise of fully autonomous AI agents. These agents won't just follow instructions, they'll possess agency, meaning they can evaluate risk, make decisions, and take action with the assistance of human oversight. Underwriting agents will be able to assess complex risks, apply pricing models, and adjust individual risk modifiers in real time. Similarly, claims agents will handle adjudication from start to finish, dramatically reducing turnaround times and improving consistency.
This transformation is especially critical for the underserved small and midsize business market, where low premiums have historically made manual underwriting economically unfeasible. With AI's ability to process vast amounts of data quickly and accurately, insurers can now scale their operations without increasing headcount. AI's capacity to optimize processes and reduce human error is already driving investment and adoption across sectors, and cyber insurance is poised to benefit enormously.
Tim Turner, Beazley group head of MAP (Marine, accident and political) risks
Geopolitical tension and economic uncertainty are reshaping the risk landscape, and data centers sit at the heart of both global tension and opportunity. As the backbone of the AI ecosystem, they symbolize progress but also provoke anxiety over building location, societal impact, and the future of jobs - issues that have already fueled opposition throughout 2025. So far we've largely only seen this dialogue play out in the digital space, but will 2026 be the year it spills into the physical world?
Data centers, already critical infrastructure and flashpoints in a word of rising volatility, are increasingly prime targets for protest and disruption. Governments and businesses must prepare for incidents that threaten data centers and strengthen resilience to keep the essential systems they support running. This is where Strike, Riots, and Civil Commotion (SRCC), political violence and terrorism, and cyber solutions play a vital role. As AI resistance shifts from rhetoric to reality, insurance must evolve from a simple safety net into a strategic enabler, helping organizations protect assets, keep operations running, and seize opportunities amid uncertainty.
Trent Cooksley, co-founder & COO, Cowbell
In 2026, the big challenge won't necessarily be AI-powered attacks - it will be how insurance policies react to organizations deploying AI for their own business operations and the new categories of exposures they create. From decision automation and AI-assisted product design to synthetic data generation and autonomous workflows, these technologies will blur the line between human and algorithmic accountability. We don't yet know what the final landscape will look like, but one thing is certain: as AI-driven risks evolve, our frameworks for insuring against them must evolve in tandem.
Insurance companies will need to introduce new policy forms and endorsements that specifically address AI-generated exposures such as model failures, data bias, intellectual property issues arising from generative tools, and the cascading impacts of algorithmic decisions across digital supply chains. This will require closer, ongoing collaboration between insurers and policyholders, with open dialogue around what AI systems are being deployed, how they're trained, and what third-party components or models are being integrated.
The future of cyber insurance won't just be about defending against external threat actors. It will increasingly focus on managing the self-inflicted risks that organizations create through their own AI adoption, from inadvertent data leaks and misinformation to systemic failures caused by flawed automation. The next phase of cyber risk management will hinge on understanding how human oversight, governance, and transparency intersect with machine intelligence.
Pete Miller, CPCU, president and CEO of The Institutes
In 2026, the focus will shift from piloting AI to operationalizing it at scale — especially in ways that prevent losses before they occur. Agentic AI is already handling tasks like claims intake, property assessments, and low-stakes customer interactions. What's next is embedding these capabilities across the value chain to drive real-time risk mitigation. As Insurtechs mature and carrier adoption accelerates, AI will continue to support decision-making, and we will start to see it being deployed even more to autonomously initiate actions that reduce risk and strengthen resilience. Scaling this transformation responsibly will require more than technology. It demands collaboration across the RMI ecosystem — including insurers, Insurtechs, regulators, and policymakers — and a shared commitment to ethical use, transparency, and fairness. Most importantly, AI must be treated as a tool — powerful, but not infallible — and always guided by human oversight and critical thinking.
Sujatha Raju, chief technology officer, at MISSION
The next era of insurance innovation will be driven by intelligence, not just automation. However, there is no one size fits all approach for AI. Insurance organizations will continue to focus on quantifying the value and benefits of AI by identifying critical use cases and how AI can bring the most meaningful difference to their business.
For example, we see an uptick in the number of vendors offering AI-driven solutions to improve document processing and submission intake. This is a clear use case priority for the industry to empower underwriters. By harnessing AI, we can connect submissions to the right markets faster, sharpen underwriting accuracy, and streamline workflows across every stage of the insurance value chain.
As the insurance market deepens its investment in AI, the real impact will come from how it equips underwriters and brokers with smarter insights that will drive value across the ecosystem.
