According to PwC, more than half of insurance executives believe that generative and agentic AI will be the industry’s most powerful game-changing investments over the next three years.
In its latest report, the professional services firm highlighted that 54% of the 136 insurance executives surveyed see AI as the technology most likely to redefine the industry in the coming years—outpacing the next most popular choice by a striking 22 points.
Reflecting that outlook, surveyed leaders say they’re gearing up for significant near-term investment in AI. In fact, 57% of insurance executives named both generative and agentic AI as their top technology priorities for 2026.
In an interview, Marie Carr, PwC’s global growth strategy leader, noted that insurers are actively testing pilots and exploring AI use cases across their entire value chain.
“Efficiency isn’t just ‘How do I reduce headcount?'” she said. “Efficiency is reducing cycle time. How quickly can I get a quote to a broker who has an opportunity? If I can do that in 10 minutes versus 10 hours or 10 days, all of those things become ways in which we compress, and we’re way more efficient.”
And while some speculate that AI could eventually replace advisors, PwC’s report suggests that’s unlikely—at least for now. Instead, the firm expects AI to support and amplify advisors’ work, pointing out that "assessing and managing larger risks requires an understanding of nuance and a level of assurance that people still most effectively provide."
“While AI is indeed changing ways of working—notably by automating and therefore simplifying (if not outright replacing) many operational processes and applications— brokers and agents continue to play a vital role in placing coverage,” PwC said in its report.
This shift away from time-consuming tasks will free insurers and brokers to focus on deeper problem-solving around the nature and complexity of risk, Carr said. She added that top brokers, agents, and MGAs will be able to deliver more powerful solutions to the market and collaborate with carriers in entirely new ways.
“The reason why the advisor and the broker stays in the loop is because now, the advisor and the broker will probably let go of the things that aren’t value-added but focus on the things that are,” Carr said.
Notably, nearly all the insurance executives PwC surveyed—92%—agreed that "financial services firms need to become technology companies that happen to offer financial products, rather than financial companies that use technology."
Carr explained how the traditional IT model could be transformed to meet this demand. Rather than confining IT staff to coding, she described an approach that integrates IT professionals more closely with other teams, enabling ideas to be developed and brought to life collaboratively.
“So that it becomes left brain, right brain,” she said. “As opposed to business, then IT. We go hand in glove together.”
PwC’s report highlights a growing trend of companies setting up in-house teams and labs to drive enterprise-wide experimentation. This includes IT teams acting as "solution designers," working hand-in-hand with business units to develop and implement scalable solutions.
The firm also noted a shift toward embedding dynamic business rules by transitioning existing robotic process automation (RPA) to agentic AI, prioritizing the development or acquisition of new skills, and moving from a build-to-buy approach—such as acquiring insurtech companies with the capabilities they need.
Carr explained that when executives talk about making their organizations more technology-focused, "it’s not that [they’re] suddenly trying to be a tech company. It’s that they want to remove the barriers and make technology and business permeable—wholly permeable with each other—so that [they] can be faster and more intimate."
