Insurance coverage leaders could also be targeted on AI accuracy and bias, however Sarah Armstrong-Smith warns the largest menace is employees disengaging from the transformation
Picture from Dive In Pageant
Insurance coverage corporations racing to automate workflows face one other danger alongside accuracy, bias and cybersecurity: staff merely disengaging from the transformation.
That warning opened Dive In Pageant 2026 on Tuesday, as Sarah Armstrong-Smith (pictured), govt director at Safe Horizons and former chief safety advisor at Microsoft, argued that the pace of synthetic intelligence adoption is forcing firms to confront the human penalties of technological change a lot sooner than in earlier industrial shifts.
“We had the primary industrial revolution, adopted in a short time by the second industrial revolution. However that was a number of a long time for us to get used to a distinct means of working,” stated Armstrong-Smith. “The true distinction is pace. The pace of change is at a fee we’ve got by no means skilled earlier than.”
AI adoption creating a brand new workforce danger
Brokers and brokers are below rising stress to make use of AI to speed up quoting, customer support, advertising and marketing and administrative work whereas preserving the recommendation and relationships that distinguish the middleman channel.
A September survey commissioned by the Unbiased Insurance coverage Brokers & Brokers of America discovered 61% of shoppers have been extra possible to decide on an agent utilizing AI and different fashionable expertise to ship sooner, extra personalised service. On the identical time, 87% stated having a human agent remained vital when making insurance coverage choices.
Nevertheless, adoption throughout the company channel continues to be uneven. First Join’s 2026 survey of 238 impartial brokers discovered solely 35% have been utilizing AI in day-to-day operations, regardless of 53% expressing optimism about its influence. The identical survey discovered 77% of brokers have been seeing elevated consumer expectations round quote and binding pace.
Armstrong-Smith described the strain between the stress to undertake new expertise shortly and the operational and cultural dangers of transferring sooner than staff have been prepared for. “You could have these frontier AI firms setting (the tempo) for everyone. Then you could have the laggards sitting behind saying, ‘I’m undecided. I wish to take my time,’” she stated.
“If I’m too far behind, I now not have aggressive benefit. But when I’m too far forward, I danger having actual challenges in my group with how this AI goes to be utilized. I’ve to sit down within the center and perceive what’s occurring at each ends.”
Staff fearful that automation is being launched to exchange them might turn into much less keen to contribute their information to AI tasks, take a look at new methods or assist redesign workflows. Armstrong-Smith described that response as one of the crucial vital organizational risks created by poorly managed AI adoption.
“Probably the most harmful factor that occurs to our group isn’t AI. It’s apathy, as a result of individuals cease caring,” she stated. “They assume, ‘I’m fearful about my job. I’m fearful about my livelihood. I’m fearful about my youngsters. I’m fearful concerning the world they’re inheriting and what meaning.’”
‘The human nonetheless sits within the worth chain’
Armstrong-Smith additionally argued that accountability can not disappear just because extra choices are supported or executed by AI. People nonetheless decide the place the expertise is deployed, how a lot authority it receives and the way its outputs have an effect on different individuals.
“The human is all the time in that worth chain,” she stated. “It’s the human who decides in the beginning how we’re going to make use of AI and to what diploma, and it’s a human who’s impacted on the finish on account of that call.”
Employee disengagement might turn into notably consequential inside brokerages, the place a lot of the worth in consumer servicing and placement nonetheless sits in staff’ amassed market information, insurer relationships and understanding of particular person accounts.
Gabby Joyner, head of WTW‘s worker expertise enterprise for Europe, advised the opening session that human judgment and relationships would stay central whilst expertise takes a larger function in insurance coverage work.
“Our function is to assist purchasers navigate an more and more complicated world, reply to rising dangers and plan for his or her future,” Joyner stated. “Human judgment, connection and collaboration will stay completely essential to that success.”
Dive In 2026 marks the twelfth and last version of the insurance coverage trade’s international competition targeted on range, inclusion, tradition and expertise. Since its launch, the occasion has introduced collectively almost 200,000 individuals worldwide and helped drive dialogue round office tradition, management and inclusion throughout the sector.
This yr’s theme, “The Human gAIn: Powering Tradition and Connection,” facilities on how insurance coverage organizations can navigate AI adoption whereas preserving the human judgment, belief and connection underpinning the trade.
