Insurers’ AI investments are now poised to deliver concrete business benefits that go well beyond simple efficiency gains.
The 2026 Evident AI Index reveals that insurers are weaving AI tools directly into processes that shape underwriting rigor and how capital is deployed.
Christian Preece, Insurance Director at Evident, notes: “For a long time, insurers have raced to outdo each other on AI ambition, but the conversation is moving from what they’re building to the actual value they’re generating. The fact that companies can internally measure these outcomes and feel comfortable sharing them is itself a sign of growing AI maturity.
“As pioneering firms begin publishing solid return-on-investment figures, they’re delivering the proof that shareholders and board members have been seeking amid rising worries about AI spending. We anticipate more insurers will follow suit and go public with their results in the year ahead.”
While the overall insurance workforce shrank by 2.2 percent over the past year, the number of AI-focused specialists grew by 32 percent among the 30 insurers covered in the report. This shift in staffing signals a move away from laying data groundwork toward refining and scaling AI applications tailored to specific business needs.
Data engineering still plays a role in these investments, but its share of the talent mix is shrinking as positions centered on AI development and software rollout take precedence. At insurers featured in the Index, AI specialists now make up one out of every 50 employees.
Leadership structures are evolving to keep pace. Close to 40 percent of the indexed insurers now have a senior executive with clear accountability for AI. The majority of these roles were created within the past year, establishing a new tier of executive leadership dedicated to AI-powered growth.
This oversight matters as companies move beyond standalone tools toward agentic AI systems that orchestrate actions across multiple phases of policy management and claims handling. Adoption of agentic AI has accelerated sharply—one in four newly reported use cases now shows signs of agentic coordination, up from just one in twenty a mere six months ago.
Zurich leads the way
Zurich illustrates this evolution well, climbing from 12th to 4th in the global rankings by prioritizing a unified platform strategy over scattered, siloed experiments.
The insurer rolled out ZurichIQ, a flexible generative AI platform woven into underwriting, claims, legal, and customer service functions. This setup offers a single environment for a range of functional tools, including PolicyIQ for comparing contracts and GuidelineIQ for upwriting standard enforcement.
A common challenge in such rollouts is maintaining consistent oversight across varied business units. Zurich addresses this through a dedicated committee that oversees AI spending and model risk. The platform model enables the company to embed AI into everyday operations while upholding a steady governance structure—bolstered by internal programs such as the £1.3 million AI apprenticeship scheme.
Ericson Chan, Group Chief Information & Digital Officer at Zurich, shared: “Earning recognition as the fastest-growing AI insurer in the Evident AI Index isn’t just about adopting technology—it reflects a wider shift from isolated use cases to enterprise-wide implementation and organizational change.
“This acknowledgment strengthens our belief in the AI360 strategy, which embeds intelligence into workflows, decision-making, and customer results across the entire value chain. AI is no longer a tech project. It’s becoming Zurich’s operating system.”
Sharpening risk selection and proving ROI
Since claims typically consume 60 to 80 percent of premium revenue, even small gains in fraud detection and risk selection yield outsized financial returns compared to routine administrative savings.
Insurers are channeling venture funding and internal innovation into data sources that support more agile analysis of climate-related volatility and cyber risks. A key indicator of maturity is the ability to measure and publicly share financial outcomes.
Manulife, Generali, and Intact Financial have taken the lead here, openly disclosing value generated through AI. Forecasts suggest these three companies will collectively produce over $1 billion in AI-driven value by the close of their respective reporting cycles. This openness gives shareholders the hard numbers they’ve been asking for regarding AI costs, effectively setting a higher bar for performance accountability across the industry.
Thriving in the next wave of adoption hinges on converting these technical investments into stronger underwriting performance. Market frontrunners Allianz (which now boasts the industry’s largest AI talent pool and has logged 900 AI use cases globally) and AXA hold their top spots by showing consistent commitment across innovation, talent development, and transparency.
Barbara Karuth-Zelle, Member of the Board of Management and Group COO at Allianz, remarked: “AI hasn’t changed what we aim for. It speeds up how we achieve it at scale.
“Behind this ranking are countless individual wins: a claim settled faster, a customer experience redesigned, a partner more seamlessly connected, a colleague freed to focus on higher-value work. And we’re committed to pushing forward—it’s an inspiring, transformative journey.”
See also: Accenture: Consumers show growing trust in AI shopping agents
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