What Every CEO Should Know About AI: What Insurers Are Overlooking

Everyone is talking about AI, but are insurers focusing on the opportunities that will create the most value?

Over the past two years, AI has become a major focus across insurance, with new technology promising to transform underwriting, pricing and operations. Yet our 2026 research with Insurance Post suggests that insurers still see AI primarily as a tool for improving efficiency.

47% of insurance professionals expect AI's biggest benefit to be reducing manual work, while 36% point to faster processes. Only 9% see better pricing quality as its main benefit, and just 14% believe the real opportunity is writing better business.

Those findings reflect where AI has delivered value so far. But they may not reflect where it is heading next.

In Part One of our four-part series, What Every CEO Should Know About AI, Optalitix Founding Director Dani Katz explores why the next stage of AI in insurance will be less about replacing people and more about connecting underwriters, pricing models and data.

The article examines how AI can move beyond administration to help insurers:

• turn broker submissions and documents into structured, usable data
• summarise complex risks before an underwriter starts work
• triage submissions according to value, appetite and portfolio fit
• connect underwriting decisions with pricing models and wider portfolio information
• give underwriters better context so they can make faster, more informed decisions

The opportunity is not simply to automate more tasks. It is to use AI to help experienced insurance professionals focus their time and expertise where it has the greatest impact.

Ready to look beyond AI efficiency?

➜ Download Part One of What Every CEO Should Know About AI to explore where AI can create greater value across underwriting and pricing, and what insurers should be preparing for next.

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