RenaissanceRe, the global reinsurance and insurance company, believes artificial intelligence can deliver significant benefits across its business, but President and CEO Kevin J. O’Donnell has cautioned that the technology is “not a silver bullet” and must be implemented carefully to achieve meaningful results.
Speaking during RenaissanceRe’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call, O’Donnell said the company has learned that AI does not automatically improve business processes, particularly as it expands its use of automation.
“We have learned is that AI is not a silver bullet. It does not automatically make everything better,” he said. “Rather, especially in the case of automation, it needs to be employed carefully and thoughtfully to maximise its benefit.”
O’Donnell said RenaissanceRe has found that simply adding AI to existing workflows is not enough. “It is not sufficient to simply overlay it on top of existing processes. Instead, many processes need to be reimagined from the ground up,” he continued.
The company views AI as a means of helping “amplify the impact of our people and enable better decisions,” with its strategy combining both augmentation and automation.
According to O’Donnell, RenaissanceRe has already made a variety of generative AI tools widely available to employees, who are developing new use cases intended to provide greater insight into the risks the company underwrites. He said AI is now being incorporated across the organisation, adding: “It’s probably fair to say that it is being used in one way or another across everything that we do.”
As RenaissanceRe expands its use of automation, O’Donnell said the company is moving from “humans in the loop to humans on the loop” and is investing significant resources in the transition. He added that he expects AI to affect an increasing proportion of the business over time.
O’Donnell also highlighted RenaissanceRe’s ongoing redevelopment of its REMS underwriting system, where AI is being integrated into underwriting as part of the company’s augmentation strategy. He said the objective is to enhance judgement and broaden underwriting capabilities by supporting the assessment of new risks, new clients and new models.
