By Ekine Akuiyibo, Chief Operating Officer

This article was originally published in PropertyCasualty360.

How AI is reshaping insurance through startups, partnerships, and productivity gains

The cloud didn’t disrupt the insurance industry overnight. What it did was unlock the conditions for disruption.

Suddenly, lean startups could build on AWS, deploy globally, and scale without the infrastructure costs that once limited new entrants. With access to modern tooling and platforms, a wave of InsurTechs began experimenting—and insurers watched closely. The transformation didn’t solely come from having cloud, but also from what the cloud enabled.

Now, we’re seeing a similar dynamic unfold with AI.

Big tech companies—Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, and others—aren’t trying to become insurers. They’re investing in core AI infrastructure: large language models, speech interfaces, real-time data pipelines, and hardware. Their platforms are reshaping what’s possible in every industry, including insurance. And once again, startups are the early movers.

Startups Are Moving Fast—And Proving What’s Possible

AI is no longer a theoretical opportunity. It’s delivering measurable impact today. In a recent Deloitte survey, 76% of U.S. insurance executives said their organizations had already implemented generative AI in one or more functions. The momentum is clear.

The real enabler? Accessibility. Generative AI has dramatically lowered the cost and complexity of deploying intelligent automation. With only a small team and the right tools, startups can now build solutions that meaningfully enhance underwriting, claims processing, customer service, and policy operations.

Startups are moving fast with AI because they can. The barrier to entry for becoming an insurance company is still high—startups need licensing, capital, and underwriting capacity. But the barrier to impact has never been lower.

The Role of Big Tech: Enablers, Not Competitors

It’s tempting to frame big tech as the next wave of insurance disruptors. But the real story is more nuanced—and more promising.

Big tech isn’t trying to sell insurance itself, at least not at scale. Instead, they’ve created a new innovation layer—one that reduces time-to-value and risk, for anyone building in the space. They’ve opened the door for agile players to move faster, test ideas, and push the boundaries of what’s possible.

This is productive disruption. It doesn’t tear down—it accelerates. It doesn’t replace insurers—it empowers them.

Cloud Was the First Wave. AI Is the Second.

The insurance industry has seen this pattern before.

The shift to cloud didn’t happen through one sweeping change. It happened through a series of well-executed experiments—often led by startups—that validated new approaches to distribution, claims, and policy management. Once proven, those approaches became enterprise standards.

Between 2020 and 2023, cloud adoption among P&C insurers rose from 29% to 85%, according to Capgemini. That trajectory wasn’t driven by theory. It was driven by outcomes.

AI is following the same trajectory—but at a much faster pace. Tooling is more powerful. Integration is easier. Public cloud is more widely used. And early AI results are already proving the value.

What This Means for Insurance Executives

This moment presents a choice: wait and observe, or engage and lead.

AI is not a monolithic transformation. It’s a technology—available today—that can augment your teams, accelerate operations, and unlock new models of service and efficiency. The path forward doesn’t require massive reinvention. It requires:

• Engagement with the ecosystem: Startups are testing and validating new tools every day. Many are ready to partner immediately.

• Experimentation at the edge: Pilot programs in underwriting, servicing, and claims can demonstrate value without disrupting existing business.

• Platform readiness: AI works best when it’s built on accessible data and modular core systems. The foundation insurers build today determines their velocity tomorrow.
  
  

Ultimately, big tech hasn’t replaced insurers. They’ve expanded what is possible. AI represents massive opportunity across the value chain. The infrastructure is already here. The startups are already building. And the tools are already proving their value.

What remains is action.

Insurance leaders who embrace this moment—who experiment, partner, and adopt with intent—will find themselves at the forefront of the next era in insurance. Not because they predicted the future, but because they were prepared to meet it.

About Ekine Akuiyibo

Ekine Akuiyibo is the Chief Operating Officer at Socotra, where he oversees field engineering, product delivery, partnerships, training, and support. Prior to Socotra, Ekine spent 15 years in enterprise software development, sales, and services at Sun Microsystems, BAE Systems, and Oracle. Most recently, Ekine worked on large scale ML problems at Oracle. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford.