Warren Buffett & Ajit Explain Berkshire's Smart Strategy on AI | Berkshire 2025

[Transcript]

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Sam England in San Francisco and it’s for Warren and Ajit. As AI systems become more capable and harder to interpret, how do you see that affecting the insurance industry’s ability to assess price, and transfer risk? Are there parallels to past disruptions Berkshire has navigated in underwriting or capital allocation?

WARREN BUFFETT: Okay, Becky. And Ajit got about 100 points of IQ on me, and he's just going to be here this morning, so I'm going let him answer the question first.

AJIT JAIN: Well, there is no question in my mind that AI is going to be a real game-changer. And it’s going to change the way we assess risk, we price risk, we sell the risk, and then the way we end up paying claims. Having said that, I certainly also feel that people end up spending enormous amounts of money trying to chase the next new fashionable thing. We are not very good in term of being the fastest or the first mover. Our approach is more to wait and see until the opportunity crystallizes and we have a better point of view in terms of risk of failure, upside, downside.

So right now the individual insurance operations do dabble in AI and try to figure out what is the best way to exploit it. But we have not yet made a conscious big time effort in terms of pouring a lot of money into this opportunity. And my guess is we will be in a state of readiness, and should that opportunity pop up, we'll be in a state where we'll jump in promptly.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah and I was just saying I wouldn't trade – I wouldn't trade everything that's developed in AI in the next 10 years for Ajit. So if you gave me a choice – (Laughter) – having $100 billion available to participate in an insurance property casualty insurance business for the next 10 years and a choice of getting the top AI product out of whoever’s developing it or having Ajit making the decisions, I would take Ajit anytime – (Applause) – and I’m not kidding about that. (Laughs)

Source: https://buffett.cnbc.com/2025-berkshire-hathaway-annual-meeting/

 

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