Publicly listed insurance companies' annual report observations | AI shifts from "auxiliary tool" to "core driver"

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Building digital infrastructure has become an industry consensus. A review by the “China Banking and Insurance Journal” of the 2025 annual reports of listed insurance companies shows that various insurers are focusing on core areas such as artificial intelligence, data centers, and computing power construction, promoting deep integration of AI with insurance business. AI has gradually shifted from being a “supporting tool” to a “core driver.”

How exactly are listed insurance companies “getting to work” with AI? The answer is three keywords: solidify the foundation, deepen scene application, and strengthen the defense line.

Solidify the Foundation: Strategic Upgrade

In the face of the wave of artificial intelligence development, listed insurers are elevating digital infrastructure to a strategic level, issuing special action plans, clarifying development directions, and comprehensively deploying underlying infrastructure such as computing power, data, and AI platforms to build a digital technology system with their own characteristics.

China PICC promotes digital transformation, keenly seizes AI development opportunities, formulates high-quality digital financial development plans and “AI+” action plans, and deploys AI, advancing enterprise architecture management system construction, optimizing data center planning, and piloting AI large model customer-facing systems. Data shows that the company’s AI application scenarios have increased by 79%, and AI capability invocation frequency has risen by 52%.

China Life actively aligns with the national “AI+” action deployment, building an AI capability system covering all aspects of management; continuously expanding its own computing power scale, and implementing large model application capabilities from knowledge bases, intelligent agents, to AI robots.

Ping An Insurance adheres to the principle of “AI in ALL,” customer demand-oriented, with a focus on empowering core businesses, continuously investing in R&D, and building technological capabilities based on the four elements of artificial intelligence (algorithms, data, scenarios, and computing power). The annual report shows that the company has built a high-quality distilled and reinforced learning external open-source large model supported by its internal database, creating a support for internal scenario applications in finance and healthcare, laying a core foundation for AI value creation.

Sunshine Insurance, focusing on “robotic engineering” and “data engineering,” in 2025, restructured the technology sector’s production relationships, reshaped the team culture and innovation mechanisms, and drew a “panoramic map of robotic engineering.” It deepened the implementation of the “AI+” strategy around sales, service, and management across 12 business segments, and innovatively built a siphon-type database, connecting data collection, analysis, and application processes to realize data-driven closed-loop operation.

Additionally, China Re has improved digital capabilities by developing and launching employer quotation tools and AI agents for safety and responsibility; China Pacific Insurance focuses on the “AI+” strategy, exploring human-machine integration, and advancing practical projects such as intelligent tools, AI literacy, and digital instructors; New China Insurance upgraded the “Strengthening Foundation Project” to version 2.0, fully empowering institutional development; ZhongAn Online deepened the “OneAI” strategy, creating the AI platform “ZhongYou Lingxi” as the core engine for business transformation. Each insurer has formed a differentiated digital infrastructure layout.

Deepen Scene Application: Empowering Core Business to Improve Quality and Efficiency

While solidifying the digital infrastructure foundation, listed insurers continue to promote deep integration of digital technology with the entire insurance business process, transforming computing power, data, and AI capabilities into operational efficiency and service quality improvements, achieving synchronized development of digital infrastructure and core business.

In terms of operational efficiency, the comprehensive application of AI technology has become a core driving force. For example, China Pacific Insurance’s “Six Soldiers” AI system and “Lingxi” AI employee are important supports for operational efficiency. By early 2025, the “Six Soldiers” AI system was implemented, detailing agent management into six stages: selecting soldiers, training soldiers, nurturing soldiers, deploying soldiers, leading soldiers, and supporting soldiers. The “training” stage’s AI smart coach enables agents to produce 15.7% higher output under the same conditions; in the “deploy” stage, the high-frequency use of the “Intelligent Customer Service Assistant” increased the 30-day conversion rate of agent users by 1.23 times. The self-developed online claims smart employee “Lingxi” by Taibao Property & Casualty is the industry’s first AI employee fully integrated with “operation assistance, risk warning, and quality management” across the entire chain.

In customer service optimization, insurers leverage digital infrastructure to create a “simple, high-quality, warm” service experience. China Life promotes the implementation of several large model applications, reducing claim processing time to an average of 0.36 days; Sunshine Life launched its self-developed “AI Customer Management Assistant,” capable of “second-level” responses and quickly generating personalized customer management plans, with the “My Sunshine” app platform completing 46 core function updates, surpassing 6.64M registered users, an increase of 15%; ZhongAn Online empowers health ecosystems with AI, serving over 150 million health insurance users.

In sales empowerment, digital infrastructure provides strong support for agents’ business development and growth. Large models enable China Life agents to professionalize and personalize their sales, improving customer contact efficiency, with annual customer visits increasing by over 15%; Ping An’s AI agents assist with demand analysis, personalized recommendations, and speech support, helping achieve sales of 133.18B yuan; Sunshine Life relies on AI tools for team training and expanding family policies, with activity per capita productivity reaching 22k yuan, and new employee activity per capita productivity at 18k yuan.

Strengthen the Defense Line: Transition from “Human Defense” to “Technical Defense and Intelligent Control”

In the process of advancing digital infrastructure, listed insurers always regard risk prevention and control as a key component. Relying on big data, artificial intelligence, and other intelligent tools, they promote the shift from “human defense” to “technical defense and intelligent control.”

In risk prevention and control, insurers have built comprehensive intelligent risk control systems. China PICC continuously enhances the application of big data, AI, and other intelligent risk control tools, strengthening technological empowerment in risk management and transforming risk control models. China Life employs AI anti-fraud, AI anti-money laundering, AI anti-sales misrepresentation, and AI consumer protection to conduct full-range risk monitoring, accurately identifying and blocking risks in real-time, and deploying digital auditors to enhance audit supervision. Ping An’s AI-enabled risk control capabilities have improved, with property and casualty lines reducing losses by 10.51 billion yuan through intelligent fraud detection and claims interception, maintaining over 22k yuan in loss reduction for three consecutive years. China Pacific Insurance insists on technological leadership, creating a new generation of intelligent risk control systems, integrating big data analysis and AI large models into internal control workflows and risk monitoring scenarios, achieving an incremental loss reduction of 18k yuan. New China Insurance relies on AI to build the “Protection Shield” system, effectively monitoring and identifying online fraud risks to safeguard customer rights.

From strategic-level computing power and platform construction to operational scene efficiency and customer service, and further to the construction of intelligent risk barriers, AI is systematically integrated into the entire insurance chain, becoming the “digital intelligence engine” for high-quality industry development.

“China Banking and Insurance Journal” Reporter Tan Lezhi