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Insurers weigh AI productivity gains against harder revenue growth test
Executives at InsuranceFest 2026 said early AI wins in document processing can be measured as ROI, while broader underwriting and distribution benefits still need proof.
Executives from insurers, brokerages, and technology providers told attendees at InsuranceFest 2026 that the most credible near-term AI gains are still showing up in document processing, workflow automation, and employee productivity, rather than immediate breakthroughs in underwriting performance.
Speaking at an “AI Revolution, From Hype to ROI” panel, Doug Alexander, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Upland Specialty Insurance, said the company has already seen measurable benefits from document extraction by automating manual and time-consuming work, with ROI that can be tracked. He also said Upland is using AI to improve individual workflows and is beginning to connect those tools into more agentic processes, while keeping human oversight central.
Alexander warned that it can be difficult for insurers to justify AI spending with broad claims about future combined ratio or loss ratio improvements, arguing that specifically targeted operational expense savings are a more defensible starting point. Doug McElhaney, chief strategy officer at Applied Systems, called productivity the “first order of value creation” and said firms should verify that AI removes time from processes so employees can redeploy capacity elsewhere.
McElhaney said Applied Systems is building AI-powered workflows designed to eliminate much of the manual work in insurance processes, with a vision of reducing 80% to 90% of associated manual tasks, though he cautioned it will not happen overnight. He also suggested there may be only a 12 to 18 month window for productivity gains to remain the central story.