Where is the industry today? - a view from the C-suite (387)

InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

InsTech

Entrepreneurship, Business, Investing

4.9 • 51 Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Robin Merttens is joined by Dr Thomas Kuhnt (HDI Global SE), Ed Ackerman (Qover) and Vincent De Ponthaud (AXA) for a rare C-suite perspective on Agentic AI — what it is, how it's being deployed and why senior leaders are walking a tightrope between bold innovation and operational risk. Agentic AI promises transformative value, but for decision-makers at the top, it also brings real uncertainty. What do you build vs. buy? How do you prove ROI? And how do you prevent over-trusting agents that are inherently probabilistic? In this conversation, Thomas, Ed and Vincent share: Why Agentic AI is different from past tech trends and why this one feels real The cultural and leadership challenge of balancing excitement with governance How AXA and HDI are enabling safe experimentation at scale across complex organisations How Qover is building 20+ AI agents to automate claims micro-tasks — and when they build vs. buy What customers really think about AI agents and why nearly none opt out The risks of shadow AI and why IT needs to move faster than ever Why “human in the loop” is flawed and how user trust in AI could become a blind spot What’s missing: industry standards, agent evaluation tools and new roles like “agent managers” The case for cautious iteration, deep collaboration and constant re-evaluation Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome. Welcome to the Instech podcast in the whole new year. Happy New Year, everyone. And to celebrate this week, Robin is joined by a C-suite panel,
0:21.2	tacking one of the biggest questions facing insurance right now.
0:25.7	Where is the industry today when it comes to agentic AI?
0:29.8	Recorded at INSTEC's rise of the agents event hosted in collaboration with AI risk,
0:34.7	this conversation brings together senior leaders who are right at the sharp end of decision making, balancing enormous promise with very real uncertainty.
0:45.1	Robin is joined by Dr. Thomas Kunt, member of the Executive Board at HDI Global, Vincent de Ponto, group head of software and AI engineering at AXA and Ed Ackerman,
0:56.7	chief customer officer at Cover, three very different perspectives from global carriers to fast-moving
1:02.5	and short-ex. Together they explore whether Agentic AI is truly a game-changer or just the latest
1:08.5	overhyped wave, how bold insurers should really be,
1:12.6	and what it means to build a business case when the technology is moving faster than governance,
1:17.6	talent and even trust.
1:19.6	Pour yourself a coffee, settle into the first episode of 2026 and enjoy the conversation,
1:26.6	including one surprisingly personal use case you won't want to miss.
1:34.3	Right, Ed. Hello, Ed Ackerman, who's the chief customer officer at Cover, from here in from Belgium.
1:41.0	And then in from Germany, we've got Dr. Thomas Kunt, who's the member of the executive
1:46.0	board, HDI Global, and down the far end, Van Sond de Ponto, who's the group head of software
1:51.8	and artificial intelligence engineering and ACSA. The idea for this came together, came from a discussion
1:58.2	I had with Thomas, which is because he made me rise what an incredibly
2:03.2	difficult job it is to be C-suite with responsibility for AI in a world where everybody knows
2:11.3	its vast potential, but it's still nascent. People don't know who the winners and the losers
2:17.4	are going to be.
2:18.1	And I thought it would be fascinating to get a group of people together and say,
	...

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