What GIF 2026 Tells Us About the Next Phase of Transformation

A Shift Towards Intelligent Insurance

Intelligent Insurance is emerging as the next phase of transformation, with real impact in how insurers operate day to day.

The core platform is evolving to embed intelligence directly into underwriting, pricing and claims. This is changing how decisions are made, bringing structure and speed into processes that have traditionally relied on manual intervention and fragmented workflows.

Capabilities such as PricingCenter and UnderwritingCenter reflect this shift. They are enabling insurers to respond faster and with more control, particularly in areas that have traditionally been constrained by manual processes and siloed teams.

The pace of change is becoming a defining constraint. As expectations, risk and technology evolve together, time to market continues to compress, placing pressure on both delivery models and operating structures. At the same time, the need for an open platform remains critical. Insurers are continuing to extend their ecosystems by integrating with third-party solutions in ways that reflect their operating models and market demands.

What this points to is a shift towards operating models designed to evolve continuously. The organisations making progress are those structuring themselves to adapt, rather than treating transformation as a programme with an endpoint.

Embedding intelligence Into The Flow of Work

What matters now is not whether insurers are adopting AI, but how it is applied. The most effective use cases are those where intelligence is embedded directly into workflows. This is where it begins to influence decisions, rather than sitting alongside them.

We are seeing Guidewire introduce new capabilities across its platform, expanding how intelligence is embedded within the ecosystem. Capabilities such as ProNavigator illustrate this shift, bringing knowledge and guidance directly into the flow of work, helping users make more consistent and informed decisions. Using a single source of information reduces reliance on fragmented expertise and improves consistency across teams.

At the same time, PricingCenter and UnderwritingCenter are reshaping how core functions operate. Pricing is becoming more responsive to market conditions, while underwriting is moving towards a more structured, end-to-end process. This reflects a broader move towards systems that support, guide and act within workflows. The impact comes from how these capabilities are applied in day-to-day operations.

Value is created when intelligence is built into how work is done, not layered on top.

Developer Velocity as a Strategic Priority

The ability to deliver change quickly and reliably is becoming a defining factor in transformation. What stood out was the focus on how development itself is evolving. The introduction of an agentic development lifecycle, with AI embedded across specification, development, testing and deployment, is changing how teams move from design to delivery.

This includes AI-generated code, automated testing and improved integration capabilities, all of which reduce friction in the delivery process. At the same time, this acceleration brings new demands around governance and control. Consistency, traceability and long-term maintainability remain critical as these capabilities scale.

The implication is clear. Developer productivity is no longer a technical concern in isolation. It is a primary driver of how quickly and effectively business value can be delivered. This is increasingly where transformation succeeds or fails.

Facilitating The Developers Breakout Session

This came to life in the Developers breakout session, which was sponsored and facilitated by Alchemy. Led by Shannon Dolan and Amy Lowry, the session brought together insurers and practitioners to explore how these capabilities translate into real delivery environments.

The session began with a presentation on upcoming frameworks, including several short demos of AutoPilot, agentic frameworks and Rules Service. Attendants were then divided into groups and given high-level use cases that challenged them to design solutions to resolve a business problem, using the new and upcoming frameworks.

This shifted the discussion from product into practice. The focus moved towards how these frameworks are applied in real delivery scenarios, from integration and testing through to managing platform evolution at scale.

What came through clearly is that the effectiveness of these capabilities depends on how teams are structured and how delivery is managed.

It reinforced our view that these tools bolster developer productivity and reduce the onus of manual builds and deployments. Reducing the amount of custom code through low/no-code frameworks reduces the risk of human error.

Bringing The Community Together

The forum also created space for the industry to connect beyond the sessions.

The Kick-Off Reception at Autoworld, sponsored by Alchemy, set the tone for the event. It brought together clients, partners and colleagues in a venue that reflected the industry’s scale and ambition. Its historic setting and collection of vehicles provided a distinctive backdrop for conversations across the Guidewire community.

Ahead of this, a more intimate pre-reception hosted by Alchemy provided an opportunity for informal discussions ahead of the wider event.

Networking opportunities such as these remind us that we are a community, capable of working together for the betterment of the insurance industry.

What This Means in Practice

What emerges is a more mature phase of transformation, where the platform becomes the foundation. The focus is on how insurers use it to make better decisions, execute faster and adapt as conditions change.We see this shift first-hand across the programmes we deliver. Success depends on deep insurance expertise, structured delivery and a clear focus on building capability within client organisations.

Our focus is on helping insurers build the capability to operate, evolve and improve their platforms over time, creating long-term value beyond implementation. This is where we see the industry heading, and where the difference between implementation and sustained transformation is now being defined.