Insurers fear tech disruption, but Naveed Irshad says the real threat is staff 'resistant' to AI

Transformation

By Branislav Urosevic

Dec 03, 2025Share

The insurance industry’s biggest AI problem isn’t algorithms – it’s the people who refuse to use them, according to Manulife Canada’s top executive.

At a recent industry event, Naveed Irshad (pictured), president and CEO of Manulife Canada, said that while “some… 75% of [the company’s] employees are using some of these tools regularly,” a significant minority is still not following suit. He described roughly a quarter of staff as “resistant” and “complacent.”

“I do worry about those individuals,” he said.

For Irshad, that reluctance is more dangerous than any external disruptor. “The biggest risk, from my perspective, is not external. It’s internal. It’s our own resistance to change,” he said.

Culture vs. technology

The insurance industry likes to talk about disruption and emerging technology, but Manulife Canada’s top executive argues the real danger is closer to home. In his view, insurers risk being left behind not because of Silicon Valley, but because they are too slow to change.

Irshad described a sector that has spent years discussing transformation while clinging to aging systems, legacy processes and distribution models designed for a different era. Customer expectations, he warned, are not standing still.

He noted that across demographics and markets, people now expect personalized, seamless, proactive experiences from every service provider – and insurance is no exception. Technologies like AI may help deliver those expectations, but, he argued, the real test isn’t the tech at all – it’s whether leaders are willing to change how they run their organizations.

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“The question isn’t whether our industry will be disrupted,” he said. “It’s how we will lead through that disruption with clarity, speed and purpose.”

Irshad insists that, at Manulife, technology is secondary to what he calls a “change ready culture.” The company’s focus, he said, has been on building a workforce that is prepared to adopt new tools and “lead through change,” rather than simply have AI imposed from above.

Wrestling with legacy systems

That rhetoric is ambitious, but Irshad also acknowledged how far the industry has to go. Behind the scenes, Manulife still grapples with the same legacy baggage as its peers – including systems old enough that the company is “still servicing policies [it] sold pre World War Two.”

Extracting, cleaning and organizing that data before AI can be deployed has required heavy upfront investment in data lakes and quality controls, he said.

Read more: Manulife, Mahindra strike US$400M joint venture to push into India's booming insurance market

None of this is easy, but Irshad argues the alternative is worse. In his telling, culture is the only way to keep pace with a technology cycle that has already left parts of financial services “stuck in the mud.”

“In a world where technology evolves rapidly, that mindset is our competitive edge,” he said.

‘AI for all’ – but a quarter lag behind

To that end, Manulife has pushed AI access far more widely than many incumbents. Irshad said the company’s internal approach is “AI for all,” with every employee able to use certain tools and most already doing so. He credits leadership buy-in and a change‑ready mindset for enabling Manulife to become the first insurer in Canada to use AI in underwriting and to scale other use cases globally.

According to Irshad, “100% of [the company’s] workforce has access to AI tools, and 75% of them use these tools regularly.” Tools range from an internal chat assistant to tools for developers and intelligent document processing systems that extract and validate data from receipts and claims.

He even uses AI personally to cope with the sheer volume of information. Rather than wading through a clogged inbox after a vacation, he lets an AI copilot summarize messages and flag the ones that need urgent responses. Another internal system summarizes customer calls from the contact centre by issue and theme so senior leaders can see what is actually driving complaints and queries, he told the audience.

Read more: Manulife Q3 profit holds steady as core earnings climb on record Asia and Canada results

“These are just small examples, but meaningful ones, of how AI is quietly boosting productivity day to day,” he said.

For employees, he argued, the story is similar: when people actually embrace the tools, “productivity [goes] way up.” But for the 25% he describes as resistant and complacent, the risk is being left behind as the organization moves ahead. Manulife can provide access and training, he said, but “we’re putting [it] in employees’ hands. They have the choice… [to] get on the bus or not.”

“AI is an enabler. It’s not a silver bullet,” he said. “The real transformation comes from how we lead with clarity, with purpose and with a deep investment in our people.”