AXA XL has appointed Leyla Delic as Chief Technology and AI Officer, a newly created position that places artificial intelligence leadership at the executive table of one of the world’s largest property, casualty, and specialty risk divisions.
Based in London, Delic will report to both AXA XL CEO Scott Gunter and Matthieu Caillat, AXA Group’s Chief Technology and AI Officer and CEO of AXA Group Operations—a dual reporting line that underscores the strategic weight AXA is placing on technology transformation across its specialty insurance operations.
Why it matters: This is not a CIO swap. AXA XL created a new C-suite position that fuses technology oversight with explicit AI accountability—a structure that fewer than a quarter of global carriers have adopted. The move reflects a broader industry inflection point: 2026 is the year carriers stop running AI pilots and start building AI infrastructure. According to the Roots 2025 State of AI Adoption in Insurance report, while more than 90% of carriers tested AI in 2025, only 22% had fully deployed solutions in production. AXA is positioning itself to close that gap.
Delic brings more than two decades of technology leadership spanning industries that have already undergone the kind of digital transformation insurance is now attempting. Her career includes CIO of Corporate Functions at GE Healthcare, Group Chief Information and Digital Officer at Coca-Cola İçecek, and Global Head of Value Realization at Aon. Most recently, she served as Corporate Chief Digital and Information Officer at Abdul Latif Jameel, where she led enterprise-wide digital strategy.
The Aon connection is particularly relevant. Value realization—the discipline of measuring and proving the ROI of technology investments—is exactly the capability carriers need as they transition from AI experimentation to AI at scale. Delic does not come from a startup background or a pure-play tech firm. She comes from a results-accountability track record inside complex, regulated, global organizations.
The AXA AI machine is already in motion. During AXA’s full-year 2025 earnings call, Group CEO Thomas Buberl called AI one of the company’s main strategic priorities—not just for efficiency, but for risk pricing, service quality, and customer experience. AXA has recruited more than 900 data scientists and data engineers. The group deploys AI across more than 400 use cases, including its proprietary SecureGPT platform for employees and AXA XL’s Digital Risk Engineer tool for IoT-based client monitoring. Just last week, AXA renewed a five-year partnership with Shift Technology to scale AI-powered fraud detection and claims processing across multiple markets.
Delic’s mandate appears clear: take AXA XL’s existing AI capabilities from scattered use cases to an integrated technology roadmap that enhances underwriting, claims, and client services across the specialty division.
What to watch: The creation of hybrid “Technology and AI” officer roles—rather than standalone Chief AI Officer positions—is becoming the model for carriers that want AI embedded into operations rather than siloed as an innovation experiment. Expect more specialty and commercial insurers to follow AXA XL’s playbook in 2026, hiring leaders who combine technology infrastructure expertise with AI deployment experience. The carriers that get this right will be the ones that convert AI investment into measurable underwriting advantage and operational efficiency. The ones that don’t will still be running pilots in 2027.
Source: AXA XL Appoints Leyla Delic as Chief Technology and AI Officer to Drive Digital Transformation
