00:00John Doyle, the CEO of Marsh, joins us now here on set at the Vatari Economic Forum.
00:03John, great to have you with us and just set the stage for us, if you would.
00:07I say risk is heightened. I might be understating it there at that point.
00:10We're focused on the Middle East, but there is uncertainty in every corner of the world, it seems.
00:14There is, and good morning. It's nice to be with you.
00:15Good morning.
00:16It is. There's great uncertainty, great complexity.
00:19In fact, in my 40 years of business, I think we're at a period of heightened uncertainty for sure.
00:25And it requires a different playbook for businesses and business leaders to confront all these things.
00:29Of course, our generation of leaders have confronted many issues, but look at the multiple major military conflicts,
00:38geoeconomic confrontation, immigration challenges, stressing labor markets, extreme weather,
00:44and then, of course, a technology revolution, all at a heightened level at the same time.
00:49So what do you do? I mean, what is the biggest risk that CEOs are asking you about or concerned
00:55about?
00:56What are they focusing on?
00:58When you ask CEOs, and we spend a lot of time, of course, advising C-suites all over the world,
01:04they lead with political geopolitics really driving and all the impacts on trade and supply chain risks.
01:12That's up at the top of the list.
01:14But cyber risk with developing technology is not far down the list as well.
01:19So there are many issues, and of course, we can help them navigate all of this complexity and find opportunities
01:26in these moments.
01:34And just see risk, but that you find the opportunity for your business now.
01:37It is 2026. We are contractually obligated to ask a CEO about AI if he or she is on set.
01:42So let me do that and do it from two fronts, because, of course, you're using it within your business,
01:47I imagine,
01:47to assess risk and assess what customers might need.
01:51And then, of course, it's something that I imagine is what these CEOs are talking to you about,
01:54the need to get into AI, to expand, to build data centers.
01:57How are you thinking about AI?
01:58Yeah, we're quite excited about AI.
02:01For our business, we're framing our business strategy and how AI can impact our business strategy
02:07around growth, productivity, and efficiency.
02:10And we're seeing real good examples of how it can improve our business model.
02:15But an important part of our business is advising companies on how to develop strategies to tackle opportunities.
02:21And AI is one of the great opportunities of the moment.
02:24Now, there are real risks, to be sure, and those risks have been talked about quite a bit of late.
02:30The big systemic risk that I'm worried about that I think is being discussed but I think is not really
02:37well understood
02:38is systemic cyber risk stemming from these new technologies.
02:43And that's something economies and businesses need to be prepared for.
02:46I mean, there's the hacking, there's the cybersecurity risk,
02:49but there's also the risk that people are going to overinvest in an unproven technology.
02:54And at the moment, especially, you know, generative AI is a bit unproven when it comes to making money.
03:00Where are you advising on that at this moment?
03:02Yeah, well, we're helping capital be deployed around the world.
03:05We're advising investors, too, where to, in our investment business, where to deploy capital.
03:10And we're supporting and we believe in responsible AI development.
03:15We think it can be very good for economic growth down the road.
03:19And so we're advising businesses, sovereign wealth funds.
03:22We're here at the Qatar Economic Forum, of course.
03:24All the possibilities around it, I think it can create some exciting growth for economies.
03:28And we're beginning to see that in our business as well.
03:31Now, it's not, we're $28 billion in revenue.
03:34It's not driving billions of dollars of revenue for us, but it is starting to drive some growth for us.
03:39We've deployed new models, new analytic solutions enabled by these new technologies.
03:44And our clients are really liking that.
03:47Let me go back to one of the geopolitical conflicts you mentioned at the top.
03:50That is what's happening in the Middle East.
03:51And we launched the show when this conflict began.
03:53Literally the day of, yes.
03:57And something we've heard time and time again from the heads of shipping companies, from international bodies that work on
04:01shipping,
04:01just the challenges of insurance when it comes to getting these vessels through the strait and around the Gulf more
04:06broadly.
04:07Talk a bit about that, sort of your perspective, your vantage on the degree to which insurance plays a role
04:12here in getting that freedom of motion once again in the strait.
04:15Insurance is fundamental to economic growth and economic development in every market all over the world.
04:20And so we're underpinning, really, investment in economies all over the world.
04:27And, of course, in a time of war, there's heightened risk.
04:29And so, you know, as you might expect, participants will pull back and assess the changes in that risk environment
04:36and price and deploy capital in a different way.
04:39We're not getting in the way of ships moving through, we, the industry, are not getting in the way, of
04:44course, of ships moving through the Gulf at the moment.
04:46Ship owners, of course, want to be very careful about having ships stuck in the Gulf, putting their staff at
04:52risk, their ship at risk.
04:55And so, but we are there and we are helping, we are helping the traffic that is happening is largely
05:01insured.
05:02And speaking of traffic, it's Ungawik.
05:04You said you're a native New Yorker.
05:07I did want to ask you just kind of more broadly, since we are here for this week, as you
05:11see these global norms and kind of these structures that we all, but especially businesses, have operated under for such
05:17years start to fracture and break apart.
05:19Does that make it harder?
05:21How do you quantify that risk and how do you advise in the face of not really knowing where it's
05:25going to be in a year or two?
05:27It is different.
05:28There's no question, right?
05:29And it didn't start at the beginning of this year or the beginning of last year.
05:32It's been evolving and moving, and so it's really important for businesses to get in front of these issues.
05:38We think resilience is an opportunity.
05:41You have to build business resilience into your strategy.
05:44Supply chain risk, you know, I think is a great example of that.
05:48We've been involved in advising clients on supply chain risk for many, many years.
05:52It really came out of our work in helping clients understand how extreme weather might impact their businesses.
06:00But, of course, recently we had a global pandemic.
06:03Now, more recently with all the trade conflicts around the world.
06:06It's been a great couple of years.
06:08Well, if you're in the risk business, demand is strong.
06:10I would tell you that.
06:12But build resilience into your strategy, and it can be a real opportunity as you diversify supply chains.
06:18Another example of where we're using AI, we're building digital twins of supply chains for our clients,
06:26and they can do all kinds of modeling around supply chain risk.
06:29You enter new markets, develop new partners, and create new revenue streams for you as a business.
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