Global reinsurance and insurance company RenaissanceRe believes artificial intelligence can bring significant benefits to its business, but president and CEO Kevin J. O’Donnell warned that the technology is “not a magic bullet” and must be implemented carefully to achieve meaningful results.
Speaking on RenaissanceRe’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call, O’Donnell said the company has learned that artificial intelligence will not automatically improve business processes, especially as it expands the use of automation.
“We’ve learned that AI is not a magic bullet. It won’t automatically make everything better,” he said. “Instead, especially in the case of automation, it needs to be used carefully and thoughtfully to maximize its benefits.”
RenaissanceRe found that simply adding AI to existing workflows wasn’t enough, O’Donnell said. “It’s not enough to just layer it on top of existing processes. Instead, many processes need to be reimagined from the ground up,” he continued.
The company sees AI as a means to help “expand employee influence and make better decisions,” with a strategy that combines augmentation and automation.
O’Donnell said RenaissanceRe has made a variety of generative AI tools widely available to employees, and they are developing new use cases designed to gain a deeper understanding of the risks the company underwrites. AI is now being integrated across organizations, he said, adding: “It’s fair to say that AI is being applied in one way or another to everything we do.”
O’Donnell said that as RenaissanceRe expands its use of automation, the company is moving from “people in the loop” to “people in the loop” and is investing significant resources in the transformation process. He added that over time, he expects AI to impact more and more businesses.
O’Donnell also highlighted RenaissanceRe’s ongoing redevelopment of its REMS underwriting system, where artificial intelligence is being integrated into underwriting as part of the company’s enhancement strategy. The goal, he said, is to enhance judgment and expand underwriting capabilities by supporting the assessment of new risks, new customers and new models.
