Senior Cloud Platform Engineer

Document extraction was the easy AI win - growth is next. Industry leaders say "low-hanging fruit" has already delivered returns; the harder test is whether AI can drive real revenue growth. The insurance industry's AI conversation is moving past experimentation and toward a more demanding question: where is the return? Speaking during the AI Revolution - From Hype to ROI panel at InsuranceFest 2026, executives from insurers, brokerages and technology providers said the most credible near-term gains are still being found in document processing, workflow automation and employee productivity. But the more ambitious opportunity may lie beyond cost reduction. Panelists argued that better data, faster underwriting and lower-friction distribution could eventually help insurers write more business, improve profitability and address parts of the protection gap. Doug Alexander (pictured left), senior vice president and chief technology officer at Upland Specialty Insurance, said the carrier has seen measurable benefits from document extraction. "What we're seeing in the AI space is we're getting a lot of benefit out of document extraction and being able to automate some of that manual, tedious work, and we can measure the ROI with it," he said. Upland is also using AI to improve individual workflows and beginning to connect those tools into more agentic processes. However, Alexander stressed that human oversight remains central. "It's our position at Upland that we want to make sure that our human expertise is augmented with AI, but not replace it certainly," he said. For insurers trying to justify investment, Alexander said narrowly defined operational savings can offer a more defensible starting point than broad claims about future underwriting performance. "It's hard to lean in with an AI tool or any project to say 'We think this is going to improve the loss ratio or the combined ratio'," he said. "But getting real specific on OpEx has been our approach in the AI tools to start." Doug McElhaney (pictured right), chief strategy officer at Applied Systems, similarly described productivity as the "first order of value creation." He said firms should measure whether AI is genuinely removing time from processes and allowing employees to redirect that capacity elsewhere. Applied Systems is developing what McElhaney called AI-powered workflows of the future, with the aim of eliminating much of the manual work currently embedded in insurance processes. "We envision these workflows eliminating 80 to 90% of the manual work that's associated with them," he said. "Now that's not going to happen overnight." However, McElhaney said the industry may have only a limited window in which productivity gains remain the central story. "I think there is a 12-to-18-month window where we can continue to see real gains and real value created just on that first element of productivity," he said. After that, the focus could shift toward whether AI can create new premium opportunities and improve the way risks move between insurers, brokers and customers. Christina Lucas (pictured centre-left), Google Cloud's global market leader for insurance, said discussions with insurers are increasingly moving from expense reduction toward growth. "You can only cut expenses so much," Lucas said. "But you can have unlimited revenue growth." She pointed to distribution, retention, customer acquisition and underwriting as areas where AI could increase revenue per employee and improve profit margins. "Your loss ratio improvements and your underwriting profitability are, I think, one of the big areas that we'll see growth in the next 12 to 24 months," she said. Monica Sanjinez (pictured centre), executive partner and commercial lines leader for Southern California at USI, said the benefits are already visible on the brokerage side through faster client preparation, submissions, proposals and policy checking. For producers, she said AI can act as a "critical thinking partner," allowing teams to prepare more quickly and focus on stronger client solutions. Yet the technology's success will depend heavily on whether employees trust and adopt it. "The AI is not replacing people, it's replacing tasks," Sanjinez said. "It's empowering us to do more - faster." That distinction may be crucial as firms confront resistance from employees concerned about automation. Lucas said organizations achieving stronger returns tend to combine broad employee access to AI tools with a small number of CEO-led transformation priorities. Lucas said the approach comes down to two things: giving employees broad, sanctioned access to AI tools like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude, and having leadership - starting with the CEO - identify two or three top transformational priorities for the organization to pursue. Christopher Frankland (pictured centre-right), founder of InsurTech360, said insurers must avoid automating flawed processes simply because the technology is available. The starting point should be workflows with the greatest friction, scale and repeatability. "Identify the workflows that have the most friction, which ones can we scale, which ones are repeatable and then kind of start with that," he said. Longer term, McElhaney believes agentic AI could go beyond assisting employees and begin running entire workflows. "I can imagine a world where at one point a risk is negotiated by two AI agents because they understand the institution on either side, they understand the rules that they need to follow which you can instrument, and they understand an outcome that both parties are trying to get to," he said.

Applied Systems has launched a submissionless commercial insurance experience, with Travelers as its first anchor carrier partner. The new capability, powered by Cytora's agentic AI platform, enables carriers to proactively deliver renewal quotes directly within Applied Epic, the leading agency management system, before remarketing begins. The integration uses agentic AI to identify renewals across targeted lines of business and automatically deliver quotes without agencies initiating remarketing. Cytora digitises risk data from Applied Epic and routes it to participating carriers' quoting services, with quotes returned directly to the management system. Applied Systems acquired Cytora in September 2025. Travelers generated revenues of nearly $49 billion in 2025 and has more than 30,000 employees.

Comulate loses appeal for injunction against Applied Systems. In litigation between competitors in the insurance technology market, a preliminary injunction was again denied to Comulate, which stands accused by Applied Systems of misappropriating trade secrets. Comulate had asked a federal judge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to reconsider an earlier denial of an injunction against Applied. "The fallout to Comulate's business, ultimately, at least for now, looks to me to be a product of Comulate and [CEO Jordan] Katz's own misdeeds, such that, on balance, a preliminary injunction in Comulate's favor would be contrary to the equities here," ruled Judge Manish H. Shah earlier this month. Comulate attempted to make an immediate plea for an injunction pending appeal. Its attorneys said more customers have left the company and it has laid off 20% of its workforce. "The situation has worsened materially," the lawyer said. The legal squabble originated late last year when Applied Systems sued Comulate on allegations that Comulate misappropriated trade secrets. Ardent Labs, doing business as Comulate, developed a software that integrates with Applied's insurance agency management software, Epic. In order to develop its product, Comulate created a fake insurance agency, "PBC," to use Epic. Applied noticed "abnormally large usage" by PBC of Epic. Comulate fired back early this year with a federal antitrust lawsuit against Applied. Comulate said it seeks to "halt an entrenched monopolist's unlawful campaign to destroy a competitor it could not acquire or outcompete." Comulate has said, "Applied has not identified a single Comulate product feature that incorporates any Applied trade secret." Comulate does not deny creating the fake insurance agency, but called it a "sandbox" account to demonstrate the functionality of its artificial intelligence-powered platform works with Epic. At issue now is the fight within the fight - whether Applied can cut off Comulate from the AMS on June 30, which could be potentially devastating to Comulate since current customers of Epic, according to Comulate, have no ability to switch away from Epic; Applied controls the software development kit to migrate data from Epic; and Applied owns Ivans, the intranet for insurance brokers and carriers that every AMS uses. "Not wanting to continue to authorize a competitor that resorts to fraud or deception in its business practices is a legitimate justification [to terminate Comulate]," said Shah. "Protecting Applied, and perhaps the market generally, from an actor that engages in that kind of conduct is likely of greater social value than the stability of Comulate's contracts with its customers." Comulate said Applied has not shown any contract language to permit it from terminating Comulate's access. "Here, a monopolist controls every input necessary to compete in this market and is unlawfully using that control to eliminate competitors," said Comulate attorney Rollo C. Baker of Elsberg Baler & Maruri during the proceedings. Shah said he was not persuaded. "Your points are really just the same points you've asserted in the motion for reconsideration," he said. When reached for comment, Comulate said: "Despite the court finding that Applied wanted to eliminate Comulate as a competitor, that its customers are 'locked-in,' that its conduct is 'harsh,' and that its product is 'inferior,' we are disappointed it declined to intervene to protect customers and competition. Applied trumpets the bulldozing of its own customers, twenty of whom, under stated fear of retaliation by Applied, unanimously told the court of their support for Comulate. The idea that a monopolist can try to kill its stated #1 competitor over a sandbox environment created after Applied's own contract breach and unsuccessful attempts to acquire Comulate will stifle insurance industry innovation and ultimately harm policyholders." Was this article valuable? Chad is National News Editor at Insurance Journal. He has been a journalist since 2000, with a focus on the insurance industry since 2007, reporting on trends and coverage in most lines of insurance as well as natural catastrophes, modeling, regulation, legislation, and litigation. Chad can be reached at [email protected]