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Insurance industry is undergoing an AI-led “smart transformation” (智慧重构). Recently, China Life, Ping An, Taikang, PICC, New China Life, China Taiping and other leading insurers have successively released their 2025 performance reports. On April 1, a reporter from Beijing Business Review sorted through the findings and discovered that “digital and intelligent transformation” has evolved from a slogan into concrete operational investment by listed insurers. In the context of rapid development of artificial intelligence, many insurers have discussed the construction of financial technology capabilities in annual reports, earnings briefings and other settings, including topics related to AI technology development and application. Unlike earlier technological digitization focused on single business lines, today’s “AI+” now covers end-to-end business processes for both insurers’ C-end and internal employees.

AI penetrates end-to-end business processes

According to annual report data, many leading insurers have increased the strategic weight of AI in their top-level design. Meanwhile, AI technology is breaking through traditional process bottlenecks, enabling a shift from “human-led” to “intelligent-driven,” significantly improving service efficiency and customer experience, becoming the core engine for “efficiency gains.”

Since 2025, the application of AI in China’s insurance industry has entered a new phase of large-scale deployment. Listed insurers have all made AI a core strategic lever and increased resource investment. According to Ping An, the group adheres to the “AI in ALL” principle, focusing on customer needs as the orientation, empowering the main business as the core, continuously investing in R&D, and building leading technological capabilities based on four elements of artificial intelligence (i.e., algorithms, data, scenarios, and computing power). In 2025, Ping An’s over 230k employees used an internal agent platform to develop more than 70k agent applications, with 3.65 billion model calls throughout the year.

China Life also uses AI to improve quality and efficiency. In its annual report, it mentions that it proactively aligns with the national “Artificial Intelligence+” action plan, comprehensively builds an AI capability system covering every aspect of corporate business and management; and establishes a data space of “one hundred million-level data – ten thousand-feature – hundred-dimension labels.”

When AI becomes “infrastructure,” what it brings is not only cost reduction, but more importantly “efficiency gains + quality improvements,” penetrating end-to-end business processes. For example, China Life mentioned that large models empower agents’ specialized and personalized business development, improving customer outreach efficiency, with customer annual visits growing by more than 15% year-on-year. ZhongAn Insurance said that AI technology has been deeply integrated into the entire chain of product design, marketing, underwriting, service, claims, and quality control. In private-domain scenarios, AI customer service helps a single agent seat serve more than 100k terminal users. The automation rate of health insurance case reviews exceeds 45%, with the fastest claim resolution possible within 15 seconds. More than 76% of customers receive claim payments within one working day. In the auto ecosystem, more than 50% of claims achieve “instant video acceptance, instant video viewing, and instant payout,” and AI damage assessment reduces the fastest turnaround time to 116 seconds.

As Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed, in a backdrop of fluctuations in industry headcount scale, AI can significantly improve total factor productivity. Through tools such as intelligent underwriting and instant claim payouts, insurers achieve second-level claim resolution and high automation rates, greatly reducing operating costs and improving customer experience.

From auxiliary tools to strategic engines

Looking ahead, many listed insurers have clearly set AI as a long-term strategic direction. At a key juncture in the industry’s digital transformation, AI is no longer merely an auxiliary tool for improving efficiency, but has become the core strategic engine for driving business growth and reshaping competitive dynamics.

“AI is not an optional question; it is a required answer.” At Ping An’s earnings briefing, Guo Xiaotao, Co-CEO of Ping An, stated clearly that Ping An is promoting the “Integrated Financial ‘Nine-Nine Return to One’” plan, aiming to integrate more than 700 million internet-registered users into a single unified super entry driven by AI, enabling comprehensive aggregation of traffic, entry points, and backend data, so that customers can complete a closed loop of medical, pension, and integrated financial services within a one-stop entry.

Regarding expanding AI application scenarios, Qin Hongbo, Deputy General Manager of New China Life, said that to achieve “let robots do what robots should do, and let employees do what is more valuable.” With the arrival of the AI era, technology empowerment has already penetrated every link of business and management at New China Life, becoming the core engine for New China Life’s high-quality development. New China Life will continue to maintain strategic focus, investing both in people and in things, and under the guidance of the new technology plan for “the 15th Five-Year Plan into the 20th,” will strive to make AI generate greater efficiency at New China Life.

At Ping An’s? (Wait—this is China’s insurers: “中国人保董事长丁向群”—should translate accordingly.) At an earnings briefing, Ding Xiangqun, Chairman of PICC, clearly positioned the technology line as an “accelerator,” and proposed to “more proactively seize opportunities in the development of artificial intelligence, deepen reforms of the technology system and digital construction, accelerate the release of technology productive forces, and seize the commanding heights of the digital-intelligent transformation.”

The landing of strategy requires scientific methodology guidance. Fu Yifu, a special research fellow at Sushang Bank, said that when insurers promote AI capability building, they should mainly grasp three coordinated dimensions. On one hand, build an integrated foundation of data and computing power. The effectiveness of AI depends on data quality. Insurers need to break through internal “data silos” that have long existed, and simultaneously build hybrid cloud and private computing infrastructure that comply with regulatory requirements, ensuring centralized utilization of data assets under compliant conditions. On the other hand, balance efficiency improvements with risk control. The financial industry has extremely high requirements for accuracy and explainability. AI applications need to establish a supporting model governance system, including algorithm audits, human fallback mechanisms, and ethical norms, to prevent compliance risks caused by “black-box” operations. In addition, it is necessary to reshape organizational capabilities for human-machine collaboration. The deep penetration of technology requires redefining job responsibilities, focusing on cultivating the ability of front-line employees to collaborate with AI tools, rather than simply replacing roles; and achieving an upgrade in the organization’s overall cognitive level through continuous skill re-formation.

By Li Xiumei, Beijing Business Review

(Editor: Qian Xiaorui)

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