Oliver Bäte calls BS on AI disruption hype
Allianz reported record annual operating profit on Thursday.
The Munich-based company said operating profit climbed 8% to €17.4 billion in 2025, above the upper end of its own guidance range and ahead of the growth rate it had flagged at a Capital Markets Day in December 2024. Revenue hit a record €187 billion, up 8% on an internal basis.
Shares of Allianz, Europe’s largest insurer by market capitalisation, were already near multi-year highs heading into the results. The stock has traded between roughly €300 and €395 over the past 12 months.
“We are on almost every measure above what we could imagine in December of ’24.” – Oliver Bate, CEO, Allianz SE.
The group said its reserve position is at its strongest level against historical references, with the underlying run-off ratio described as extremely small after adjusting for an accounting reclassification related to natural-catastrophe pooling arrangements.
Bate flagged currency as a significant risk, noting that a major devaluation of the U.S. dollar could easily strip €1 billion from operating profit through translation effects alone. The group said its USD sensitivity for 2026 has risen modestly to around €600 million per 10% dollar move, from €500 million previously, reflecting PIMCO’s growth.
“We have the U.S. dollar trending down, so affecting massively our earnings from the United States. Maybe as a reminder for everybody, 50% even our P&C premium is denominated in non-euro currency, so exposed to foreign exchange.” – Oliver Bate, CEO, Allianz SE.
Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte pushed back on what he called premature assessments of AI’s impact on insurance distribution — specifically calling out the hype around AI replacing commercial brokers as, in his words, a lot of “bs.”
“When I saw the sell-off, particularly in commercial lines of brokers, I thought, a lot of b***s***.” – Oliver Bate, CEO, Allianz SE.
Bäte acknowledged that AI-powered tools like LLMs are already reshaping how consumers discover and evaluate insurers, noting that unlike price comparison sites that reduce decisions to cost alone, AI search results surface broader criteria including empathy, claims service, and customer satisfaction scores. Allianz is investing heavily to ensure it ranks favorably in these emerging discovery channels.
“So when you put into various markets what’s the best car insurance, what has the best service, the LLMs, as they learn, they give you an answer. And we are working on it day and night. We’re putting enormous resources behind it, trying to understand what the criteria are, what the source case is. And interesting is actually better than price comparison websites who continuously push, as in the U.K. only pricing. You actually see criteria, likability, empathy, customer service, claims service, recommendation, i.e. NPS by current customers. So it’s quite a broad set of things.” – Oliver Bate, CEO, Allianz SE.
However, he drew a sharp line when it comes to commercial and SME insurance. Under German, U.S., and French law, incorporated businesses are legally required to receive professional advice when purchasing coverage. If a company buys liability insurance through a ChatGPT prompt and a claim goes unpaid, the question of who bears legal responsibility for that advice — and for any AI hallucination embedded in it — becomes critical.
Bäte closed on an optimistic note, arguing that AI will ultimately empower consumers to ask better questions and demand more differentiated value — which he views as a net positive. He also pointed to Allianz’s December 2024 AI strategy session as validation that the company’s roadmap remains on track, adding that firms like Anthropic consider Allianz ahead of most competitors in AI adoption.
“And there’s a reason why companies like Anthropic and others believe Allianz is ahead of many, many other competitors.” – Oliver Bate, CEO, Allianz SE.
