Artificial intelligence is accelerating across the insurance and collision-repair ecosystem in ways that no longer look experimental. What began as a set of narrow, mostly internal tools has shifted into a strategic priority for an industry under pressure to move faster, manage more data and meet rising customer expectations.
“The reality is, AI isn’t new to the auto insurance and collision repair industries,” Kristyn Emenecker, vice president of product management at CCC Intelligent Solutions, told Newsweek. “They’ve been using it for years. At CCC, we’ve been investing in AI for more than a decade and have been embedding AI into our products for more than five years. What’s different now is the urgency and scale.”
Boards, she added, have moved from “let’s test AI” to “we need to adopt AI responsibly,” as capital continues flowing into insurtech.
A Shift from Experimentation to Execution
Emenecker said the momentum is being driven by familiar pressures: productivity, data volume and and changing expectations around speed and personalization.
“The reasons for AI adoption are driven in part because the industry is under pressure to deliver productivity at scale, manage massive amounts of data, and meet customer expectations for instant, personalized experiences,” she said.
Industry research reflects the same pressure. McKinsey reports that property and casualty insurers stand to gain their largest AI payoffs in claims automation and fraud detection, outpacing underwriting, policy administration, and other core functions.
As AI moves deeper into everyday operations, insurers and repairers are rethinking where the technology can have the most impact.
“We think of AI not as the destination, but as the way customers can deliver on their strategic priorities faster,” Emenecker said. Because the P&C insurance economy touches insurers, repair shops, tow operators and parts suppliers, “every handoff matters. When workflows are fragmented, everyone involved can feel it.”
The key, she noted, is aligning AI investments to friction points that slow cycle times and drive up costs. That includes accelerating productivity by automating manual tasks, building proficiency to offset labor shortages, capturing insights from large data volumes and delivering more intelligent, seamless experiences.
“When AI is deployed with these goals in mind, it stops being a tech experiment and starts driving measurable business outcomes,” she said.
Where AI Is Delivering the Most Value
Although claims, estimating, subrogation and customer experience are all seeing returns, Emenecker said estimating and subrogation are moving fastest.
On the repair side, CCC’s Mobile Jumpstart solution now supports more than 15,000 repairers who use it to assess damage from a photo. Upload an image and, in under two minutes, AI generates an estimate that is typically more than 80 percent complete and ready for human review. That step alone, she said, helps insurers avoid unnecessary fees, frees up space for repairable vehicles and gets drivers back on the road faster.
Subrogation is undergoing an equally significant shift. Historically, adjusters worked through 25 to 200 pages of documentation per claim, a slow and error-prone manual process.
Emenecker said AI-driven subrogation tools can prioritize claims with the highest likelihood of recovery and cut cycle times from weeks to minutes. “The result? Lower costs, faster settlements, and new capacity for adjusters,” she said.
Navigating Workforce Disruption
The industry’s labor challenges are becoming impossible to ignore. “Workforce disruption is real: nearly half of U.S. auto technicians will be 45 or older this year, and more than 400,000 insurance professionals are nearing retirement,” Emenecker said.
AI, she emphasized, is not a replacement for human expertise, it’s an amplifier.
“We see AI as a way to extend the productivity of experienced professionals and accelerate onboarding for new hires,” she said. AI estimating tools can help new technicians ramp up quickly while enabling seasoned professionals to focus on more complex work.
Beyond AI, Emenecker said CCC is investing in talent pipelines as a founding member of the Collision Repair Education Foundation (CREF). The company donates estimating software to schools so students can train on the same systems used in the field.
“Future technicians want to work with advanced tools,” she said, and AI helps make that possible.
Balancing Speed With Empathy
For customers, claims are often the most emotional point of contact with an insurer. “A collision is stressful. Drivers remember how they were treated, sometimes for years,” Emenecker said. The question is not just how fast a claim moves, but how understood a customer feels during it.
AI helps by taking over repetitive, manual tasks so employees can spend more time on human connection.
When a photo is uploaded, for example, AI can instantly predict the probability of a vehicle being repairable, helping avoid unnecessary tows and storage fees. “The result? Faster resolutions and better experiences for customers who feel understood,” she said.
Differentiating Through Experience
As insurers and repairers look to compete, AI is emerging not only as a cost-saver but as a differentiator.
Emenecker pointed to VIVE Collision, which sends reminders to Tesla owners who name their cars — “Mary has a service appointment today” — as an example of how personalization and empathy can scale.
Others use AI to tailor communications and simplify complex information while keeping a human tone.
“These touches turn routine interactions into brand-defining moments,” she said.
Consulting firms are arriving at the same conclusion. Earlier this year, BCG noted that AI is no longer just an efficiency lever for insurers, but a way to pursue more ambitious strategic goals and reimagine customer experiences at scale.
What Comes Next
The industry’s next chapter is approaching quickly. “The pace of AI innovation will never be slower than it is today,” Emenecker said. Agentic AI and autonomous systems are on the horizon, promising even more orchestration across complex workflows.
At CCC, she said, the focus is on solving the challenges that matter most: helping clients help their customers keep life moving after an accident.
“We do this by combining industry expertise with AI innovation to help our clients deliver better outcomes and get drivers back on the road faster,” she said.
AI Isn’t Replacing Insurance Experts, It’s Amplifying Them
