MGAA 2026: A Market Finding Its AI Confidence

There was an unmistakable energy around this year's MGAA Annual Conference. This year’s MGAA Annual Conference had a clear sense of momentum. The exhibition hall remained busy throughout the day, conversations continued between sessions, and unsurprisingly, one topic consistently surfaced across the market: artificial intelligence. 

From AI Interest to Practical Adoption 

One of the conference highlights was the AI panel, chaired by The Insurance Insider’s Fiona Robertson, featuring Sasha Haco of Unitary, Matt Chaplin and Nathan Holt from AXA, alongside Rosie Poole of Health Solutions. Rather than treating AI as a technology discussion alone, the session focused on what it takes to bring people, processes and organisations along as AI becomes part of everyday insurance operations. 

Nathan Holt shared a particularly striking observation: many insurance professionals remain concerned about AI’s impact on job security, yet comparatively few fully understand how the technology can support their role. That observation framed much of the discussion that followed. Training, experimentation and openness were recurring themes, as was the importance of creating environments where employees can test ideas, share successes and develop confidence in new tools. 

The strongest conversations were not about AI in isolation. They were about how AI can support better, faster and more governed insurance decisions. 

Governance, Governance, Governance 

The panel also returned repeatedly to governance. AI can accelerate decision-making, improve consistency and remove repetitive administrative work, but responsibility remains firmly with the insurer. Human judgement, explainability, and accountability were treated as enduring requirements, not temporary safeguards. 

At the Earnix stand, many conversations centred on how insurers and MGAs can move beyond isolated AI experiments and begin connecting AI into the workflows where pricing, underwriting, claims, and customer engagement decisions are actually made. 

Insurance-Native AI 

One topic that generated particular interest was insurance-native AI. As AI capabilities continue to evolve, insurers are increasingly looking for technology designed around insurance decisions rather than adapted from generic enterprise tools. Bringing together AI agents, predictive models, workflows and governance into a single decisioning layer offers the potential to support pricing, underwriting, claims and customer engagement in ways that reflect the industry's regulatory and operational realities. 

The prospect of agentic insurance also sparked real interest. Delegates were curious about how AI agents might collaborate across workflows, helping insurers handle routine decisions while ensuring experienced underwriters retain oversight of more nuanced or complex cases. It felt less like a distant ambition and more like the next stage of the industry’s evolution. 

For Earnix, these discussions reinforced an important observation. Insurance is moving beyond isolated AI initiatives towards integrated, governed decision intelligence purpose-built for insurance. That journey is still in its early chapters, yet the direction of travel feels increasingly clear. 

The conference itself reflected that confidence. There was curiosity without hyperbole, optimism tempered by pragmatism, and a willingness to share experiences across the market. If previous years were characterised by exploration, MGAA 2026 felt like a clear step toward AI becoming an accepted part of modern insurance operations. 

The market is ready for the next phase: AI that is practical, governed, and built around the decisions that define insurance performance. Learn how Earnix is built for what’s next.