Insurance giant says it's turning to AI to replace as many as 1,800 jobs

By Nora Redmond

Allianz, a German insurance company, confirmed it will be eliminating up to 1,800 positions.

Allianz is cutting between 1,500 and 1,800 jobs in Europe, as the German insurance giant seeks to ramp up its use of artificial intelligence.

German insurance publication Versicherungsmonitor first reported that roles in call centers at Allianz Partners, a subsidiary of Allianz, would primarily be affected at a time when AI tools are increasingly replacing manual tasks.

Allianz Partners provides services like travel protection and 24//7 hotlines for other companies that sell to consumers.

"At Allianz Partners we are transforming our business with AI responding to and meeting the changing needs and expectations of our customers," a spokesperson for the company said in a statement on Wednesday. The spokesperson did not comment on whether it was specifically call-center employees whose roles were being eliminated, but highlighted the efficiency of its AI agent that provides roadside assistance in multiple languages around the clock.

With a market capitalization of about EUR158 billion ($180 billion), Allianz (XE:ALV) is one of Europe's largest insurance companies.

The business unit of the Munich-headquartered company has a workforce of close to 23,000 people across six offices globally. Allianz said it was looking for opportunities for employees to fill other vacancies or get reskilled.

Shares in Allianz declined almost 1% on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Companies are boosting their usage of AI, with the technology now penetrating one in five U.S. businesses, per the U.S. Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey for June. And the agency forecasts that climbing to one in four by the end of the year. Information, professional services, education companies and finance-sector firms are among those with the highest usage, the survey noted.

While AI has not caused sweeping job losses across industries, it has helped to reshape the labor market as companies utilize the tech in attempts to boost productivity and efficiency. Tech giants, by contrast, are cutting their workforces to support higher spending on AI.

Microsoft (MSFT) announced earlier this week that it was eliminating 4,800 roles, about 2% of employees, after committing to spend $190 billion in capital expenditure for the year.

"I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI," Amy Coleman, chief people officer at Microsoft, wrote in a statement. "At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done."

Meta Platforms (META) and Amazon (AMZN) also announced job cuts earlier in the year, which have also allocated billions of more dollars to AI.

-Nora Redmond

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-08-26 1054ET