AI adoption is a change problem, not a technology one.
88% of organisations now use AI. Only 6% have captured significant enterprise value from it. We close that gap for insurance and financial services teams, through change management, not more technology.
Source: McKinsey, "Capturing Central Europe's AI Opportunity", June 2026, citing "The State of AI in 2025" · BCG, "Closing the AI Impact Gap", 2025
Why AI adoption stalls
Access looks healthy. Use doesn't.
The adoption funnel
−52 pts
92%
Tool access
78%
Initial training
61%
First use
40%
Sustained use
Technology in placeTechnology alone
Source: Worklytics, citing Morgan Stanley & RSM, 2025
Access and training numbers look healthy on a dashboard. But leaders overestimate real usage by up to 3x. That 40% plateau is where the fix has to start.
AI initiatives stall after deployment because the change involved is underestimated.
Initiatives without active sponsorship are roughly three times less likely to meet their objectives.
Workflows are left unchanged, so the AI tool stays optional rather than essential.
Without reinforcement, teams revert to old habits once the initial push ends.
Not because the platform fails. Sponsorship fades after launch. The workflow never gets redesigned around the tool. Reinforcement stops once the project team moves on.
The cost: missed productivity gains, disengaged teams, and AI investments that never reach the value they were built for.
~CHF 0.4Ma year in reclaimed capacity for a 250-person team moving from 40% to 80% adoption
Illustrative, based on our AI Value Calculator's default inputs. Recalculated for your own numbers in the diagnostic.
Where change management earns its place in AI adoption
Drawing on Prosci-certified change management practice and hands-on experience inside insurance organisations, we focus on three areas that consistently decide whether an AI rollout sticks.
Sponsorship
A leader visibly uses AI, shares what they learn and encourages others to experiment.
Workflow Redesign
We build AI into the real workflow with the people doing the work, then revisit it as trust and technology evolve.
Reinforcement
Managers and champions protect practice and feedback as the technology evolves.
Experimentation lives under Reinforcement, backed by Sponsorship. It's the psychological safety a team needs, protected day to day by managers and champions as the technology evolves.
Change management built for insurance, not generic AI rollout
20+ years leading change and transformation across insurance and financial services, including roles at Swiss Re, PartnerRe and Galytix. Prosci-certified since 2015, now working as an AI Adoption Specialist through Design and Lead Change GmbH.
A change management practice built specifically for AI adoption in insurance and financial services.
20+ years leading change and transformation across insurance and financial services, in Switzerland and the UK, including roles at Swiss Re, PartnerRe and Galytix.
Prosci-certified Change Practitioner since 2015.
PMP and PSM I certified.
Executive MBA from IMD.
Since August 2025, working as an AI Adoption Specialist through Design and Lead Change GmbH, diagnosing AI adoption readiness and designing change strategy for insurance and financial services clients.
Design and Lead Change is a founder-led practice. Engagements are led personally from diagnostic through to delivery, with specialist partners brought in when a project calls for extra capacity.
Why This Work
Twenty years of adapting to new companies, teams and countries across insurance and financial services taught something that no single project could: technology fails to stick not because it doesn't work, but because the people asked to use it were never brought into the change. That is what this practice is built around, the change work that decides whether AI adoption actually holds.
Where This Comes From
Before the Accelerator existed as its own offer, we worked as a contract Change Manager, placed through a staffing agency, on the UAT phase of a global insurance company's new AI underwriting platform.
~40%→~80%UAT completion, with vs without dedicated change management
Our own estimate. Not a measured post-launch adoption result, and not delivered through the Accelerator.
Industry context: BCG found in March 2026 that just 38% of P&C insurers were generating value at scale from AI in core workflows, most citing people and process gaps rather than technology.
Change management for AI adoption, built for insurance and financial services
Drawing on Prosci-certified change management practice and hands-on experience inside insurance organisations, we focus on three areas that consistently decide whether an AI rollout sticks.
Sponsorship
A leader visibly uses AI, shares what they learn and encourages others to experiment. We work with sponsors to make that visible, not assumed.
Reduces adoption risk by putting active sponsorship in place from day one.
Workflow Redesign
We build AI into the real workflow with the people doing the work, then revisit it as trust and technology evolve, so the tool becomes essential rather than optional.
Turns the tool from an add-on into how the work actually gets done.
Reinforcement
Managers and champions protect practice and feedback as the technology evolves, so gains made at launch don't erode once attention moves elsewhere.
Protects the gains made at launch instead of letting them fade.
Experimentation lives under Reinforcement, backed by Sponsorship. It's the psychological safety a team needs, protected day to day by managers and champions as the technology evolves.
The Proof Point
The same UAT engagement described on the About page is the clearest illustration of how this plays out: a contract Change Manager role on a large insurer's AI underwriting platform, before the Accelerator existed as its own offer.
~40%→~80%UAT completion, with vs without dedicated change management
Our own estimate, not a measured or tracked adoption result, and not delivered through the Accelerator.
Every engagement starts with the free AI Readiness Diagnostic and a Strategy Session to walk through the results together, then moves through four phases.
01
Diagnose
Stakeholder diagnosis & baseline
Usage barriers & workflow gaps
Success measures by user group
Wks 1–2
By the endA clear picture of where adoption is likely to stall, and how success will be measured.
02
Design
Change strategy & rollout plan
Training & communication plan
Manager & champion enablement
Wks 3–4
By the endA rollout plan the organisation actually owns, with managers and champions ready to carry it.
03
Deliver
Readiness activities & training
Champion activation & feedback
Hands-on work with local teams
Wks 5–10
By the endTeams using the tool in their real workflow, with feedback loops already running.
04
Track & Evolve
Post-launch tracking & iteration
Continuation plan
Internal capability to carry it forward
Wks 11–12
By the endA continuation plan and the internal capability to keep adoption moving without us.
After the 90 Days
Clients who want continuity move to an ongoing monthly retainer, minimum six months.
Continuity through the months after go-live, when reinforcement matters most.
What the retainer focuses on each month is agreed as priorities change, not fixed from the start.
Champions and managers stay accountable for the habits the programme built.
Pricing is agreed to scope. Ask about it in your strategy session.
Design and Lead Change GmbH, represented by Eri Ishikawa, Buchberg, Switzerland. Email: eri@eriishikawa.com. This website is operated in accordance with the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP/nDSG), effective 1 September 2023, and, where applicable, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
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