Bloomberg Podcasts Sep 20, 2026
With John Doyle, President and CEO of Marsh McLennan
John Doyle has been in the insurance business for four decades, and he says he has never advised chief executives through a period this uncertain.
A risk broker has every commercial reason to sound excited about artificial intelligence, and Doyle does. Then he names the thing he says is being discussed without being understood, and it is not the hacking.
"There's the hacking. There's a cybersecurity risk, but there's also the risk that people are gonna overinvest in an unproven technology."
John Doyle, President and CEO of Marsh McLennan, on Bloomberg Podcasts, runs the firm that advises corporate boards on what could go wrong and then places the insurance against it, which makes him one of the few people who sees the same risk register from several thousand companies at once.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 5 insights that matter.
Key Takeaways
In forty years in business he has not seen uncertainty this high, and he says it calls for a different playbook
His list: several major military conflicts, geoeconomic confrontation, immigration pressure on labor markets, extreme weather and a technology revolution, all at once
Chief executives lead with geopolitics and the trade and supply chain damage it causes, with cyber risk "not far down the list as well"
The systemic danger he says is talked about but not well understood is cyber risk coming out of AI itself
Separately, he names overinvestment in an unproven technology as a real risk, and says generative AI has not yet shown it makes money
AI is not yet a revenue line for Marsh McLennan on his own account, though he says it has started to add some growth
In wartime, insurers reprice and pull back rather than refuse, and he says the Gulf traffic that is still moving is largely insured
Resilience is what he is selling, a practice built first on extreme weather, then the pandemic, then the trade conflicts
Marsh McLennan is building digital twins of client supply chains so clients can model the risk before they move
1. Forty Years, No Precedent
The anchor opened by saying risk is heightened and that she might be understating it: the Middle East is the focus, but there is uncertainty in every corner of the world. Doyle agreed and put a number on his own frame of reference.
Four decades in, this is the most uncertain stretch he has worked through
In fact, in my forty years in business, I think we're at a period of heightened uncertainty for sure. And it requires a different playbook for businesses and business leaders to confront all these things.
John Doyle
His point was not that any one of these is new. It is that they arrived together. He listed several major military conflicts, geoeconomic confrontation, immigration challenges putting stress on labor markets, extreme weather, and a technology revolution, all running at a heightened level at the same time.
2. What CEOs Actually Ask
Asked what the biggest risk is that chief executives raise with him, Doyle gave the order. Geopolitics is first, and what makes it first is the damage it does to trade and to supply chains rather than the politics itself.
Cyber risk is the second thing on the list, not a distant one
But cyber risk with developing technology is not far down the list as well.
John Doyle
His pitch to those boards is that the same conditions produce openings. Marsh McLennan's job, on his account, is not only to identify the risk but to find where a client's business gains from the disruption.
3. The Unproven Technology
The anchor said she was contractually obligated to ask a chief executive about AI in 2026, and asked about it from two directions: what Marsh McLennan does with it internally, and what clients want to do with it. Doyle started with his own business.
Inside the firm, AI is framed as growth, productivity and efficiency
For our business, we're framing our business strategy and how AI can impact our business strategy around growth, productivity, and efficiency, and we're seeing real good examples of how it can improve our business model.
John Doyle
Then the risk side, and here he separated the danger everybody already talks about from the one he says is not properly understood. His term is systemic cyber risk, meaning an attack or failure that spreads across many companies at once rather than hitting one of them.
The systemic risk he worries about comes out of the new technology itself
I think it's being discussed, but I think is not really well understood is systemic cyber risk stemming from these new technologies, and that's something economies and businesses need to be prepared for.
John Doyle
The second risk is financial rather than technical, and he put it plainly for someone whose firm sells AI-enabled products.
Overinvesting in something that has not proved it makes money is itself a risk
There's the hacking. There's a cybersecurity risk, but there's also the risk that people are gonna overinvest in an unproven technology. And at the moment, especially, generative AI is a bit unproven when it comes to making money.
John Doyle
Asked where he is advising on that, Doyle said Marsh McLennan is helping capital get deployed around the world, advising investors inside its own investment business on where to put it, and advising businesses and sovereign wealth funds, which is part of why he was at the Qatar Economic Forum. He said he believes in responsible AI development and thinks it could be good for economic growth.
Then the reality check on his own numbers.
AI has not become a revenue line at the firm yet
Now it's not worth $28,000,000,000 in revenue. It's not driving billions of dollars of revenue for us, but it is starting to drive some growth for us.
John Doyle
What it has produced so far is product, not profit
We've deployed new models, new analytics solutions enabled by these new technologies, and our clients are really liking it.
John Doyle
4. Insuring The Gulf
The anchor turned to the Middle East, noting that her programme launched the day the conflict began, and said that shipping executives and international shipping bodies keep raising the same problem: getting vessels insured through the Strait and around the Gulf.
Doyle answered the general point first.
Insurance is what allows the investment underneath economic growth
Insurance is fundamental to economic growth and economic development in every market all over the world.
John Doyle
What happens in a war, he said, is not refusal. It is repricing, and a slower deployment of capital while underwriters work out what the risk now is.
Underwriters step back and reprice rather than walk away
And, of course, in a time of war, there's heightened risk. And so, as you might expect, participants will pull back and assess the changes in that risk environment and price and deploy capital in a different way.
John Doyle
He was firm that insurance is not the binding constraint on the Strait, and said the caution is the ship owners' own: they do not want vessels stuck in the Gulf with their crews and their ships exposed.
The industry is not what is stopping ships
We, the industry, are not getting in the way, of course, of ships moving through The Gulf at the moment.
John Doyle
The ships that are sailing have cover
The traffic that is happening is largely insured.
John Doyle
5. Resilience As Product
For the last question the anchor widened it out. With the global norms that businesses have operated under for decades coming apart, how do you put a number on that risk and advise on it when nobody knows where it lands in a year or two?
Doyle's answer was that the fracturing is not new and the response is not forecasting.
He sells resilience rather than a prediction
We think resilience is an opportunity. You have to build business resilience into your strategy.
John Doyle
His worked example is the supply chain practice, and its history is the argument. It did not start with trade policy.
The supply chain business grew out of climate work, not trade work
We've been involved in advising clients on supply chain risk for many, many years. It really came out of our work in helping clients understand how extreme weather might impact their businesses.
John Doyle
Then the pandemic, then the trade conflicts of the last couple of years. He allowed himself one aside about what that has done for his own order book: "if you're in the risk business, demand is strong." He added that diversifying a supply chain is not only a defense, because entering new markets and signing new partners creates revenue as well.
Marsh McLennan is modeling client supply chains in software
Another example of where we're using AI, we're building digital supply or, excuse me, digital twins of supply chains for our clients, and they can do all kinds of modeling around supply chain risk.
John Doyle
Bonus Insights
The anchor's own framing of the risk backdrop
She opened by saying risk is heightened and that she might be understating it, with the Middle East in focus but uncertainty everywhere. That framing, not Doyle's, set up the forty-years answer.
The AI question was a joke about the format
Introducing the AI section, the anchor said that in 2026 the show is contractually obligated to ask a chief executive about AI if one is on set. Doyle took the question seriously anyway, and it produced the most pointed thing he said.
Where the conversation was happening
Doyle was on set at the Qatar Economic Forum, during the week of the UN General Assembly, and he mentioned advising sovereign wealth funds in the same breath as the forum. The anchor noted he is a native New Yorker.
Shipping executives have been saying the same thing for months
The anchor said the insurance problem in the Strait has come up repeatedly from the heads of shipping companies and from international bodies that work on shipping. Doyle's answer is a direct rebuttal of that framing: the cover is there, and the caution belongs to the owners.
Doyle's bottom line is that the risks worth preparing for are the ones the market is not pricing: a cyber failure that spreads through the new technology rather than one company's breach, and money committed to generative AI before it has shown it can earn anything — and that the answer to both is building resilience into the strategy rather than forecasting where the disruption lands.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Marsh McLennan (His firm. Advising boards worldwide on geopolitical, cyber and supply chain risk, deploying capital through its own investment business, and building digital twins of client supply chains)
Qatar Economic Forum (Where the interview was recorded, and where he said Marsh McLennan advises sovereign wealth funds on where to put capital)
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