Chetan Kandhari has spent 20 years at Nationwide reimagining what an insurance leader does. Today, as Chief Innovation and Digital Officer, he's navigating one of the industry's most critical questions: How do you transform an enterprise with AI while keeping humans at the center? 

We sat down with Chetan alongside Pranay Agrawal, CEO of Fractal, to explore what separates winning AI implementations from the rest. What emerged was a masterclass in pragmatism: the role of strategy over technology, the importance of business constraints, and why the insurance industry's complexity is actually its competitive advantage. 

On strategy first, technology second 

When you ask Chetan about AI transformation, he doesn't start with models or architecture. He starts with business. 

"You cannot treat AI just like a tool. You have to treat it like a tool plus an operating model that can give you exponential benefits." 

The distinction matters. At Nationwide, a company committing $1.5 billion by 2028 to modernize its technology, that commitment spans data infrastructure, workforce development, and cloud systems. AI is one piece, not the whole picture. 

The real insight: business strategy doesn't change with AI. What changes are execution speed and the quality of outcomes? "AI can completely change the quality and delivery while driving the same business outcome," Chetan noted. The insurance value chain remains governed by regulation, risk, and the core mission of protecting members. AI accelerates how you move through that chain, not the chain itself. 

For Nationwide's sales and underwriting teams, the question isn't "Where can we use AI?"; it's "Where does AI create the most value?" The answer depends on each insurer's fundamental differentiator. Double down on that, and AI becomes a force multiplier rather than a distraction.

Breaking through the mental model 

All enterprises operate within constraints: legacy systems, regulatory boundaries, and workflow assumptions built over decades. 

AI can improve many of these constraints, but it can take time for humans to adopt them. "Businesses that can enable the workforce and break free from those limitations can be quicker to market, scaling pilots to enterprise operations," Chetan explained. The companies winning with AI aren't the ones with the fanciest models. They're the ones whose teams see beyond yesterday's constraints. 

At Nationwide, this looks like claims associates using AI to summarize documentation in real time, freeing them to focus on empathy and stakeholder connection. The work changes shape and the value shifts. 

From scaling generative AI to living in an agentic age 

Nationwide began scaling generative AI in 2024. The focus was narrow and high impact: search, summarization, and automation of repetitive work. 

But the landscape shifted. The agentic age arrived quickly. 

"There's a lot of value to be obtained, but without the right guardrails, governance, and decision management frameworks, there are significant consequences." 

This is where many enterprises stumble. Agentic systems promise to replace human judgment. Chetan rejects that premise. Nationwide’s strategy is different: "Use AI as a thought partner to amplify the work of the human being." 

The distinction is crucial. An agentic system that operates independently is a liability in insurance. A system that augments human reasoning, with humans making final decisions, is an asset. 

Why insurance's complexity is an advantage 

Insurance is built on unstructured data. A home policy requires subjective assessment. A claims case involves narrative, photos, and context. This complexity has long been a point of friction. 

For AI, it's a goldmine. 

Where structured data commoditizes quickly, unstructured data is a durable, competitive advantage. Generative AI excels here, but only if paired with explainability and human judgment. 

Chetan emphasized the distinction between deterministic and probabilistic reasoning. Underwriting involves both. An underwriter makes a probabilistic assessment (probability of a claim), but the overall process remains deterministic and documentable. The human adds context, reasoning, and explainability. That's the edge. 

"You must be able to trace your decision back and explain why you made it." That's not a regulatory burden in insurance. It's a feature. 

Funding AI strategically 

The $1.5 billion commitment raises a natural question: How does a Fortune 100 company decide where to place its bets? 

Chetan's answer: capital allocation models. The CXO team discusses appropriate allocation frameworks, then reviews critical needs from technology and AI angles. Affordability and future forecast guide final placement. 

The ROI question is unchanged by AI. Build a business case. Run an experiment. Turn winners into scaled operations. Repeat. 

"For leaders like Nationwide, we focus on how to make a difference for our customers." That's the true north. Everything else is execution. 

The bionic workforce is not the goal 

The industry talks about the "bionic workforce." AI-augmented humans. Chetan frames it differently. 

The goal is collaboration. Before AI, an associate prepared a spreadsheet manually. Today, the person asks questions and has a back-and-forth dialogue with the tool. The work accelerates. Decisions quicken. Initiatives complete weeks faster. 

"Software is still there to serve us." The human is not becoming part of the machine. The machine is becoming part of human capability. 

The build versus buy question never changes 

One last point from Chetan: in an age of AI abundance, the build versus buy calculus hasn't changed. 

Leaders still need to focus on business capability and speed to market first. The fundamental criteria remain steady. Cost and time horizons adjust. Strategy doesn't. 

"The overall criteria for build versus buy doesn't change. AI does change the timeline by speeding things up, but it doesn't change the criteria," Chetan said. 

For an enterprise at the scale and complexity of Nationwide, Chetan's leadership exemplifies a principle many miss, and that is viewing AI as an accelerant that magnifies strategy, speeds execution, and liberates humans from tedious constraints. AI should better serve judgment rather than replace it. 

As Nationwide plans for its next 100 years, the company looks to deploy AI in service of its mission to protect people, businesses, and futures with extraordinary care. 

That clarity is rare in enterprise AI. That's why it matters.