Post by Oliver Wyman

What if AI isn't the biggest disruption facing insurance? The real shift is happening in customer expectations. Rick Chavez and Paul Ricard explore what it really means to become customer-first in the AI era: ➡️ The most valuable AI investments begin with solving real customer needs, such as financial security, retirement, or family wellbeing, rather than asking what the technology can do. ➡️ Plan for the future, then work backwards. Leadership teams should align around a clear view of where the market will be by 2030, identify their future competitive advantages, and define the next 18 months of action to get there. ➡️ Whether acting as a demand aggregator, ecosystem orchestrator, or component supplier, insurers need to choose their role intentionally rather than defaulting to traditional positions. ➡️ Sustainable reinvention requires shifting management attention and investment away from legacy "cash cows" to focused transformation bets that can reach meaningful scale. ➡️ AI augments people, it does not simply replace them. The biggest opportunity lies in redesigning end-to-end work so employees can spend less time on manual tasks and more time delivering higher-value advice and decision-making. Winning in the AI era is not about adopting the latest model—it is about building the organisational muscle to continuously learn, adapt, and reinvent around customer value. Listen to the conversation in the latest Reinventing Insurance podcast: https://owy.mn/3QCvKyG