New York Life has appointed Zhen Zhao (pictured) as chief AI officer, a role that will oversee the firm's AI strategy, platform development, and deployment of agentic AI and machine learning capabilities. Zhao joins from Chubb, where he served as senior vice president and global head of AI Platform.
The appointment signals that AI leadership capable of operating inside insurance-specific governance and product environments is now being competed for between carriers. At Chubb, Zhao led global teams across AI platform development, governance, and large language model operations.
Earlier in his career, Zhao held AI and data platform roles at Barclays and Comcast. He began his career as a software engineer at the People's Bank of China.
Zhao holds a Ph.D. in computer engineering from Drexel University and serves as an adjunct associate professor at Temple University.
The CAIO role sits separately from the firm's chief information officer post, held by Deepa Soni. Soni said the company intends to apply AI to how agents and advisors serve clients over the long term.
A standalone CAIO at a major mutual insurer reflects how AI has shifted from a technology initiative to a board-level strategic priority. IBM's 2026 CEO Study of 2,000 chief executives found 76% of organizations now have a chief AI officer, up from 26% a year earlier. The hiring pace across insurance has accelerated as carriers move from AI pilots to production deployment.
Zhao's mandate explicitly includes agentic AI development. Agentic AI refers to autonomous systems capable of completing multi-step workflows without human intervention at each stage. New York Life said the focus of his role includes developing tools to help agents and advisors serve clients.
An Accenture study found that 86% of insurance organizations plan to increase AI spending in 2026, with agentic AI topping the investment list. The most relevant carrier-level agentic AI applications for insurance brokers are in placement workflows and advisor support tools.
As carriers build out these capabilities, broker clients are raising expectations in parallel. Zywave's 2026 Broker Services Survey found that AI adoption entered the top reasons employers say they would switch brokers for the first time.
