Winning With AI: Strategies from the insurance industry’s top performers

After ranking among the top five insurers with the best AI rollout, experts from  Manulife and AXA shared key insights into their AI deployment strategies, including deployment structure, innovation and research, timeline balance, and talent management.

AXA ranked in first place and Manulife – parent company of John Hancock – in fifth out of dozens of companies listed in the 2025 AI Index recently released by global intelligence and benchmarking firm Evident.

“We started around 10 years ago in systematically building out technology, data and operations foundations in parallel. I think there was a realization that you need all those three components, almost like a layer cake together — data, tech, operations — to transform and improve your business,” Dr. Andreas Schertzinger, group chief data, AI and innovation officer, AXA, said during an Evident AI roundtable discussion.

He said AXA’s strategy has been to deploy AI across the entire value chain, from core insurance operations, including software engineering, to support and control functions. Further, he noted that the goals and expected ROIs vary depending on each use.

“Some lead to growth and customer experience. We have improved technical excellence. There’s also operational efficiency that we’re realizing, or simply better service. There’s not yet a consistent way of how to measure return on investment across those many different areas,” Schertzinger said.

For Manulife, the AI journey began around 2016 with a “proof of concept” phase that primarily centered on machine learning, according to Jodie Wallis, global chief AI officer, Manulife. Also speaking during the Evident AI roundtable, she said the process gradually evolved over the years to the point where they are now thinking about generative AI as a “scale play.”

“It’s important to be able to invest wisely and sweat those investments, and that’s where we are now, of course. We’re in the use case phase and I feel like we’re just on the cusp of moving out of that as well and starting to talk a lot more about workforce transformation, transformation in general, starting to talk more openly around value and real business outcomes,” Wallis said.

Measuring AI maturity in insurance

Evident’s AI Insurance Index profiles the AI efforts of 30 of the largest insurers across North America and Europe. It assesses 76 scoring indicators across four primary pillars: talent, innovation, leadership, and transparency. Those indicators are then compared against peers within the industry to produce an overall index score from one to 100.

AXA earned the highest score at 63. The average score was 35.5 points, and the lowest was 15. AXA and Manulife both emerged as “decisive leaders,” ranking in the overall top five alongside Allianz (No. 2), USAA (No. 3) and Intact Financial (No. 4).

Companies were also ranked based on their performance in each of the four pillars to narrow down their strengths and weaknesses. AXA ranked No. 1 overall and in innovation and transparency, but came fourth in talent and third in leadership.

AXA, Allianz, and Manulife were the only three insurers to consistently place in the top 10 both overall and across each pillar.

Innovation and partnership

Schertzinger emphasized that key partnerships opened the door for AI strategies and innovation at AXA. He said the company has a robust research fund that spans more than 700 projects and 432 academic institutions across the globe, including Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI and leading tech companies like NVIDIA.

“We have then a research and development team that is focusing on the boundaries of what we can imagine is possible to do with generative AI, spatial AI — those link closely to our academic partnerships,” he said.

AI strategy timelines

Both Schertzinger and Wallis said their teams launch both near-term and long-term AI activities, with different expectations on outcomes and expected timelines accordingly.

Schertzinger said near-term projects, such as activities on how to scale AI up, may have an expected timeline of four to five months, while longer-term projects may not yield results for five to 10 years.

“How to balance your in-quarter, in-year with your longer-term horizon, I think that’s an art, not a science,” Wallis added. “We generally try and think about a 70-30 rule that says 70% of the money we spend on AI should give us short to medium-term value, and then 30% is either infrastructure or the longer-term R&D.”

Talent management

Both Wallis and Schertzinger noted that change management and ongoing training play a major role in their successful AI rollout strategies.

For instance, Wallis said when Manulife released ChatMFC — its own internal equivalent to ChatGPT — they deliberately brought in specialists to show staff how to use the tool practically. She said the company is also expanding its staff complement to include data scientists, researchers and AI engineers.

“I don’t think there is a person or a job or a role that isn’t impacted by this in some way. It is possible that density rises for all of us because we’re continuing to proliferate the types of roles that are required to shift the organization,” Wallis said.

Manulife, founded in 1887, is one of Canada’s oldest and most established insurance and financial services providers. It operates in more than 19 countries and territories around the world, including as John Hancock in the United States.

Evident is a benchmarking and intelligence firm founded in 2022 and based in London, the United Kingdom. It measures AI adoption and maturity across the financial services sector.

AXA Group is a global insurance firm founded in 1921 and based in Paris. It operates in more than 50 countries, providing a range of insurance services to both individuals and corporations.

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