Avantia Group has strengthened its team by appointing Dan Hirlea as Head of AI. This pivotal new role complements the addition of Saurabh Johri as AI Advisor earlier in 2025, and will support Avantia’s future hiring plans in the AI space and the business’ ambition to become the UK’s first fully AI-driven insurer.
Dan brings extensive experience in developing and delivering AI-powered applications across the financial and insurance sectors. Previously, he was Data Science Manager at Lloyd’s of London specialty insurer AEGIS, where he used AI to improve business processes, using AI agents for semi-supervised claims classification to inform actuarial frequency and severity risk modelling.
The new role will see Dan build and lead a new multidisciplinary team and accelerate Avantia’s AI strategy, embedding cutting-edge AI tools to enhance customer experience and streamline operations across the business, ensuring all AI initiatives align with customer needs and regulatory standards.
Avantia is already recognised as an industry pioneer in the AI space, having rolled out its own AI-led proprietary pricing platform in 2017. In 2025, the business launched Holmes, an award-winning industry-first AI tool that helps detect fraud and enables faster, fairer claims for genuine customers. Avantia is also currently the only insurer participating in the FCA’s AI Live Testing initiative, which supports the responsible deployment of AI in the UK finance and insurance sectors.
Dan Hirlea, Head of AI at Avantia Group, said:
“My career has always been closely linked to artificial intelligence, from early work building custom neural networks predicting individual business KPIs to more recent applications using advanced large language models to augment human decision-making. I’m passionate about how AI can transform a business model and enhance processes – when I met the Avantia team it quickly became clear that this role presented an exciting opportunity to be at the forefront of AI innovation in the insurance industry.
“I look forward to bringing my experience to the Avantia Group to expand their AI capabilities and provide an even better experience for customers.”
Dan Huddart, Chief Technology Officer at Avantia Group, added:
“AI isn’t a bandwagon we’ve suddenly jumped on; we’ve been using it for years to make intelligent real-time decisions for our customers and investing in our own decision-making platforms. With Dan’s expertise guiding our rapidly growing team, we’re looking forward to accelerating our AI roadmap and setting even higher standards in the insurance industry.”