Q&A | May 21, 2026

Agentic AI gives insurers a path to modernize without rip and replace

Insurance organizations know they need to modernize their operations, yet many still rely on decades-old systems — platforms originally built to support policies designed to last 50 or 60 years. The path to modernization for insurers is littered with projects that took longer, cost more or simply didn’t work — multi-year rip-and-replace transformations that make modernization look more like a moonshot than a landing that any insurance enterprise can stick.

But at DXC, we’ve taken a different path, and here’s why. We believe agentic AI is giving insurers a way to modernize incrementally, embedding intelligence directly into existing operations without dismantling the IT infrastructure they've built over decades. The promise is real, and the key is getting it right. 

Understanding how AI can help simplify the complexity of individual insurance workloads matters more than anything, according to Jenna Colman and Dan Stanovich, two DXC Technology Insurance Software and Business Process leaders who recently brought that perspective to ServiceNow Knowledge 2026. 

Jenna leads DXC’s Assure Smart Apps as Global Product Director and Dan oversees its Life Insurance Business Process Services across the Americas region. Fresh from the conference in Las Vegas, Jenna and Dan shared how AI is transforming insurance operations, why specificity in deployment is critical and how modern platforms are helping insurance leaders modernize without compromise.

Q: Right now, most AI pilots are still failing. What are some key challenges insurance leaders face in trying to design ones that will succeed?

Jenna: One of the biggest challenges is simply the weight of heritage IT infrastructure. Many insurance carriers are still running on 30-year-old platforms written in COBOL, maintaining policies that need to remain active for decades. 

That's not an IT estate you can easily walk away from, and understandably so. Most insurance IT leaders don't have the appetite for modernization projects that can take years to complete. AI pilots in insurance can stall not because the technology isn't ready, but because the path to integrating it feels all or nothing. 

But it doesn't have to be that way for insurance leaders. Incremental transformation is possible. You don't have to rip out your back end systems to move forward. The journey can start today. We not only designed the process to get there, we also designed the destination: Assure Smart Apps.  

Q: DXC co-created Assure Smart Apps with ServiceNow to help insurance leaders accelerate transformation with AI. How do they actually deliver on that?

Jenna: Assure Smart Apps is a suite of AI-powered insurance applications built on ServiceNow's agentic AI and workflow technology, bringing together DXC's deep insurance expertise with a powerful automation backbone. 

Rather than putting insurers through a massive, multi-year system overhaul, these apps let them modernize specific processes one at a time, without disrupting what's already in place. 

What makes them truly "smart" is an intelligent orchestration layer working behind the scenes, dynamically routing tasks, deploying the right AI agents and using large language models to handle complex workflows. Insurance leaders do not have to follow a several months' long waterfall development cycle to realize value. They can start seeing real results in just weeks and continue building from there. 

What this means is that teams can isolate one large pain point, implement an app-based AI solution to address it, quickly realize the value the new solution brings — and then move on to the next challenge. It’s incremental AI-fueled progress that will create exponential value.

Q: DXC has deployed Assure Smart Apps internally. What's an area where you're already seeing an impact?

Dan: As someone who oversees back-office and call center operations supporting approximately 30 of DXC's insurance customers in North America, claims intake and processing is one of the highest-impact areas and one where we saw almost immediate value from adding agentic AI to our operations.

Traditionally, processing a claim takes anywhere from 40 to 60 days. There is a lot of back and forth between claims adjusters and policyholders, as paper-based processes are prone to errors and missing information, leaving policyholders waiting for resolution.

Assure Smart Apps fundamentally change this business process for DXC and for all of our customers. We built Claims Assistant, and it renders and signs claim forms electronically with proper human oversight. AI agents handle document extraction, fraud detection and policy validation simultaneously, so straightforward claims — those with clear coverage, complete documentation and no fraud indicators — are resolved quickly and efficiently. 

With agentic AI, a claims process can go from 40 to 60 days down to 10 to 15. That’s a direct win for policyholders and for our insurance customers, whose bottom lines improve since outstanding claims accrue interest.

Q: We talk about DXC’s Customer Zero approach with agentic AI — how is that at play here?

Dan: If DXC's Life Business Process Services operation were an insurance company, we'd be the largest in North America. The one thing that separates us from being an insurance company is that we do not underwrite risk. Even without underwriting risk, we face the same operational challenges as every single one of the 30 insurance customers we support, from managing high volumes of claims and policy changes to meeting regulatory and compliance demands, and we see those challenges play out across all of them at once, a multiplier effect that gives us a unique vantage point from which to assess how agentic AI can streamline workflows incrementally.

It also positions us as what we call Customer Zero for DXC's insurance software, including Assure Smart Apps. We prove it works in our own operation first before we bring it to market — we’ve done it with the Claims Assistant and Engagement Assistant and right now we’re working to integrate other apps into the workflow to tackle more challenges. The beauty with Customer Zero is that lived experience — we can share exactly what we did and what it delivered across a real enterprise just as complex and layered as the insurance organizations we support.

Q: As we wrap up, what is the key message you want insurance leaders to take away following ServiceNow Knowledge 26?

Jenna: Modernization doesn't have to mean disruption. You don't have to rip out your core systems or bet your operation on a multi-year transformation to start seeing real results.

Assure Smart Apps were designed to meet insurers where they are, integrating with existing systems and delivering impact incrementally. We've proven that in our own operation across 30 insurance customers, and the results speak for themselves.

But perhaps the most compelling part of this story is what it means for the business case. Even if your costs stay flat, the productivity gains allow you to scale exponentially. You can bring in more business with the same number of people. And when you do that, you're not just improving efficiency, you're improving your growth. That is the opportunity in front of the insurance industry today, and it's available right now.

Learn more about DXC Assure Smart Apps.