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How Artificial Intelligence Is Reshaping Wholesaling

Author

Dan Beatrice, ALMI, ACS, AIAA
Senior Research Analyst, Member Benefits
LIMRA and LOMA
dbeatrice@limra.com

November 2026

Insurance carrier wholesaling operations accelerated artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in 2026. As a results-driven function focused on sales, growth and pipeline development, wholesaling is increasingly leveraging AI to identify opportunities, prioritize activities and enable more informed decision making. While strong relationships remain the foundation of successful wholesaling, AI is enhancing how wholesalers work and compete. As expectations for performance continue to rise, wholesaling leaders are increasingly looking to AI to enhance productivity, improve execution and help their teams focus on the activities that drive the greatest value.  

Technology and analytics continue to improve wholesaling by providing performance insights, supporting territory planning and boosting administrative efficiency. During the past two decades, client relationship management (CRM) systems have enhanced activity tracking, follow-up pipeline management, coaching and performance management. In the never-ending quest for continuous improvement, the promise of AI has generated enormous excitement. 

The perspectives presented in this article are based on three sources: interviews with wholesaler leaders, my observations from LIMRA’s Wholesaler Leadership Summit in May, and results from LIMRA’s 2026 wholesaler survey.  

Successful wholesalers understand the importance of discipline, organization and process. Effective wholesaling relies on three core activities: preparation, execution and follow-up. As part of LIMRA's 2026 Wholesaler research project (to be published online in the first quarter of 2027), we interviewed wholesaler leaders from 15 companies in the first quarter of 2026.  These leaders viewed AI as a valuable augmentation tool. They cited benefits such as reducing administrative workload, improving insight generation, enhancing research and meeting preparation, strengthening written communication, and improving the efficiency of wholesaler follow-up activities.  

Early 2026 

AI technology adoption in support of sales efficiency was expanding beyond email drafting to include call transcription, note capture and coaching insights. AI tools are increasingly being used for data analysis, performance diagnostics, variance analysis and sales training simulations. This enhances reporting, content creation and meeting preparation. 

We repeatedly heard that AI is not a substitute for relationships or expertise. Personalization, judgment and relationships remain irreplaceable. Leaders stressed the importance of personalizing outputs to maintain authenticity and credibility. Technology adoption plays a central role in modern wholesaling effectiveness, and these tools help wholesalers focus on relationship-building rather than administrative tasks. 

Knowing that AI meaningfully reduces administrative burden and enhances wholesaler readiness, wholesaler leaders reported that they were planning to integrate AI more deeply into account management and distribution strategy. From a maturity and utilization standpoint, leaders found AI to be more mature in operational and underwriting contexts. In contrast, compliance considerations continue to be a gating factor for broader deployment. That said, they expressed growing interest in formal training and broader integration of AI into distribution workflows to improve effectiveness and scalability. However, direct use of AI by field wholesalers remains limited.  

May 2026 

By the arrival of summer, wholesaler leaders were assessing the potential impact of AI at LIMRA’s Wholesaler Leadership Summit in Orlando. Many believed that if AI became widely adopted across the industry, traditional sources of competitive advantage would become less differentiated. This would place greater emphasis on wholesalers’ selling skills, storytelling abilities and capacity to deliver value to financial professionals. This shift would heighten the importance of subject matter experts (SMEs) in training and development. Further, the new landscape would create expertise-driven models to serve high-end niche markets while much of the middle market would increasingly move toward self-service solutions. 

By this time, carriers were increasingly partnering with vendors such as Anthropic or Allego to develop customized AI tools for call coaching, role-playing and training call center reps. These AI tools provide targeted expertise and support in addressing the questions and information needs of financial professionals.  

In many respects, AI was evolving into an enhanced CRM capability, helping wholesalers work more effectively by:  

  • Analyzing data and identifying actionable insights
  • Providing relevant content and thought leadership for use in conversations with financial professionals 
  • Assisting with schedule planning and workflow management 
  • Summarizing meetings and key action items 
  • Reducing the risk of being caught off guard by highlighting relevant issues, opportunities and developments related to specific financial professionals 

Summer 2026 

In the summer, we surveyed more than 850 wholesalers from 34 companies to gain insights on how they are leveraging AI to drive efficiency. Our research focuses on wholesalers whose primary product is either life insurance or annuities and who serve as either internal or external wholesalers. 

For wholesalers, the perceived value of AI tends to increase with usage. AI adoption ranges from no use at all to deep integration in daily workflows. Excluding those who had not used AI, we asked respondents which tasks they use AI to support and how they value its assistance. The results suggest a strong relationship between AI usage and perceived value. 

Figure 1. Top 5 Tasks Assisted by AI

Filter the data in this chart by clicking on a color bar in the chart legend.

* Overall: Percentage of 752 wholesalers who have used AI overall versus heavy AI users — wholesalers who are using AI for core tasks or have deeply integrated AI into daily workflow.

** Heavy AI Users: Two-thirds were external wholesalers, with the balance being internal wholesalers.

The survey also found that:  

  • One in 10 wholesalers do not use AI.
  • Three in 10 wholesalers experiment with AI occasionally.
  • Nearly half use AI for simple tasks (e.g., drafting, summarizing, brainstorming).
  • One in 10 wholesalers use AI regularly for core work tasks or have deeply integrated AI into their daily workflow. 

Figure 2. Value Placed on AI Assistance by AI Usage

Filter the data in this chart by clicking on a color bar in the chart legend.

Conclusion

As 2026 has progressed, wholesaling organizations have increasingly focused on implementing AI as a tool to augment human capabilities. AI adoption in support of sales effectiveness and operational efficiency is accelerating across the industry. For most wholesalers, greater use of AI is associated with greater perceived value. While AI cannot substitute for relationships or expertise, wholesaler leaders expect it to become an increasingly important component of their distribution strategies. As AI becomes more commonplace, competitive advantage will depend less on AI access and more on how effectively wholesalers use it to strengthen relationships, expertise and execution.

 

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