Allianz Partners to cut up to 1,800 jobs as AI expands use

Allianz Partners said it will cut 1,500 to 1,800 jobs across Europe as it expands the use of artificial intelligence, with the reduction expected to come through severance packages, early retirement and other voluntary departures rather than abrupt layoffs.

The insurer, which has more than 22,000 employees worldwide, has already offered voluntary departure schemes in Spain, France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries. Tomas Kunzmann, Allianz Partners’ chief executive, told employees and attendees at a Munich event that the company had spent about six months negotiating with works councils, a process that slows major staffing changes in much of Europe.

The restructuring is tied to AI-based systems meant to handle a large share of routine customer enquiries, including claim-status updates and address changes, while more complex cases stay with human staff. Eurofound has identified about 1,600 Allianz Partners employees in Germany, mainly in and around Munich, and says roughly 14,000 workers across the company are in call-center or phone-based customer inquiry and claims roles, making those jobs especially exposed to automation.

That concentration explains why Allianz Partners has become one of the clearest examples of how AI is reaching into white-collar service work. Bloomberg Economics has estimated that 27% of workers in advanced economies are likely to be meaningfully affected by AI, a warning that extends beyond insurance to banking, travel assistance and other customer-service businesses where companies are trying to lower overhead and speed up response times. Munich Re’s Ergo unit is also targeting about 1,000 job losses in Germany, with AI cited as one factor, suggesting the pressure is spreading through the sector.

At the same time, Allianz is posting strong financial results. The parent company said earlier this year that it delivered record operating profit in the first quarter of 2026 and remained on track to meet its full-year operating profit target of 17.4 billion euros, plus or minus 1 billion euros. Allianz’s 2025 annual report said AI had begun to transform how people live and work, underscoring how central the technology has become to the company’s strategy even as it reshapes headcount.

The job cut had been reported last November, before the company publicly confirmed the plan in July. Eurofound has classified the move as an internal restructuring linked to the rollout of AI-driven systems in Europe, putting a number on a shift that is increasingly visible across finance and insurance: the same tools that can make service faster and cheaper are also reducing the need for large teams of workers who answer the phone.