Zurich Insurance Group Unveils Winners of Its 2025 Innovation Championship at the Inaugural Zurich Innovation Festival

Zurich Insurance Group Unveils Winners of Its 2025 Innovation Championship at the Inaugural Zurich Innovation Festival

(IN BRIEF) Zurich Insurance Group held its first Innovation Festival on October 16, 2025, celebrating global collaboration and technological progress in insurance. During the event, Zurich announced ten winners of the Zurich Innovation Championship 2025, recognizing startups and partners advancing digital transformation across marketing, finance, underwriting, and claims. Winners include Nexoya, Optimizely Opal, and the top five performers from the Agentic AI Hyper Challenge, such as AgentricAI’s Clara, Interloom, Wangari Global, WordLift, and ZuriFault. Alumni honorees Lisa Insurtech, Nearmap, and Sixfold were also celebrated for scaling their innovations within Zurich’s global network. The festival highlighted Zurich’s commitment to fostering partnerships that leverage AI and data-driven solutions to reshape the insurance industry and enhance customer experiences worldwide.

(PRESS RELEASE)  ZÜRICH, 17-Oct-2025 — /EuropaWire/ — Zurich Insurance Group has hosted its first-ever Innovation Festival on October 16, 2025, bringing together a dynamic mix of startups, AI innovators, investors, customers, and industry experts. The event served as a global platform for collaboration, creativity, and dialogue on the evolving role of technology and artificial intelligence in transforming the insurance landscape.

A highlight of the festival was the announcement of the ten winners of the sixth edition of the Zurich Innovation Championship 2025, the company’s flagship global startup competition. The initiative aims to identify and scale technology-driven solutions that tackle core business challenges and improve customer experiences. The winners include standout pilots launched this year, top performers from Zurich’s Agentic AI Hyper Challenge, and high-impact alumni from past championships — all recognized for driving measurable innovation within Zurich’s global operations.

2025 Zurich Innovation Championship Winners
Two winners were selected from 25 pilot projects initiated this year for their ability to deliver tangible results and address key business challenges:

• Nexoya: Provides AI-driven analytics to optimize cross-channel marketing, helping Zurich teams allocate budgets more effectively and enhance campaign performance.
• Optimizely Opal: An AI-powered agent orchestration platform that enables marketing organizations to create, scale, and personalize digital experiences across multiple channels.

Winners of the Agentic AI Hyper Challenge
Five of this year’s champions emerged from Zurich’s groundbreaking Agentic AI Hyper Challenge, the insurance industry’s largest AI hackathon. The global competition saw more than 1,000 participants from over 40 countries develop next-generation AI applications for claims, underwriting, finance, and marketing.

• AgentricAI’s “Clara” automates travel claims processing through a system of AI agents, reducing manual work while keeping human oversight intact.
• Interloom captures and structures institutional knowledge, enabling seamless collaboration between Zurich employees and AI systems.
• Wangari Global’s Etio automates financial reporting such as IFRS 17, delivering deeper insights through root cause analysis.
• WordLift enhances Zurich’s web search performance and user experience through AI-powered SEO optimization.
• ZuriFault, developed by a Zurich cross-functional team, accelerates motor liability claims decision-making with advanced Agentic AI integration.

Zurich Innovation Championship Alumni Honorees
Three alumni companies were recognized for their continued success in scaling their solutions across Zurich’s operations worldwide:

• Lisa Insurtech, which automates health claims management, has streamlined over one million claims annually since its 2022 collaboration with Zurich.
• Nearmap, a leader in aerial imagery and AI analytics, enhances underwriting accuracy by identifying property risks in partnership with Zurich North America and Farmers Insurance®.
• Sixfold, an AI-driven underwriting platform, cuts document processing time from hours to minutes, empowering underwriters to focus more on client engagement and complex decision-making.

“Events like the Innovation Festival show how our collaboration with startups and AI pioneers is shaping the next era of intelligent insurance,” said a Zurich spokesperson. “By combining creativity, data, and advanced automation, we’re transforming not only how insurance operates but also how it serves customers globally.”

Through the Zurich Innovation Festival and its Innovation Championship, Zurich continues to reinforce its commitment to open collaboration and AI-enabled innovation, ensuring that technology remains central to the company’s vision of building a more adaptive, customer-centric insurance ecosystem.

Further Information

Learn more about all the winners of the Agentic AI Hyper Challenge here, and find out more about the Zurich Innovation Championship here.

Watch the full Innovation Festival here.

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SOURCE: Zurich Insurance Group