The 2025 Sureify Life & Annuity Summit gathered 170 life and annuity leaders to explore barriers to growth and define a more efficient future. We captured and analyzed their perspectives to understand how they see the industry evolving for agents, customers, and home office teams. From those conversations, three key themes emerged.
The Customer Experience: Hyper-Personalized and “Channel-less”
Life and annuity leaders believe the future interaction model will expand beyond rigid portals and the one-size-fits-all approach toward a seamless, tailored experience. This includes radical personalization, where every interaction is specific to each customer’s and agent’s unique profile and communication preferences.
They envision the future as a “channel-less” experience, where interactions are delivered directly to where users want to conduct business, whether via a portal, text exchange, or phone. Furthermore, data insights will empower carriers and agents to shift to a more proactive communication strategy that is responsive to customer needs.
The Role of AI: Superpowers and Change Catalyst
AI is viewed by leaders not merely as an efficiency tool, but as a fundamental catalyst for operational change. They anticipate AI will act as a true “force multiplier,” significantly amplifying individual capabilities across the organization. As confirmed by the McKinsey Global Insurance Report 2025, the industry’s leaders are no longer viewing AI merely as a cost-cutting tool, but as a fundamental driver of transformation that deepens customer relationships.
With regard to AI advancement, life and annuity leaders anticipate that:
- Agents, customers, and home office teams will become more effective through the support of Agentic AI and AI personal assistants.
- AI will increase transparency and provide “north star direction and guidance” for customers.
- Agents will be equipped with data-driven “superpowers,” enabling them to know when and how to enhance customer relationships.
- Underwriting will undergo a revolution, moving beyond simple rule engines to true AI analysis and, eventually, dynamic underwriting, fueled by a broader data set.
Transformation: Structural Evolution and Shifting Roles
To achieve digital experiences with minimal friction and maximum speed, leaders believe life and annuity must prioritize two initiatives. Standardization is essential to streamline processes, and establishing a technical foundation to advance core system capabilities is essential. Despite their hesitation to “start over,” there is consensus that carriers must modernize legacy systems and, where necessary, rebuild new, more flexible systems from a “digital core.” Once AI has the foundation to scale rapidly, it will have broader impacts, including altering distribution dynamics.
While AI will enable disintermediation (selling without an agent), leaders widely agree that humans will remain part of the insurance equation for the foreseeable future. With that being said, the agent’s role is expected to shift, focusing instead on relationship building and complex financial guidance, while AI handles simple transactions and administrative tasks.
The Frictionless Future Starts Now
If there is one thing that life and annuity leaders have made clear, it’s that the time for incremental change has passed. Accelerating modernization efforts is the only way to keep pace with today’s digital policyholder. By committing to standardizing data and embracing AI as a true partner, we can build a future that is not only fast and agile but also deeply connected to the people we love and serve.
This article synthesizes insights from the report, Beyond Friction: The Life & Annuity Blueprint for Speed, AI, and Customer-Centricity. To explore your peers’ full commentary and the detailed roadmap for the future, we encourage you to read the full report.
— Ben Brantley,
Sureify CTO
Featured articles
