Reed Smith - Full Stack Developer

Aon plc is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement, and health solutions. With approximately 50,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon serves clients in over 120 countries. In June 2025, Aon launched Broker Copilot—a proprietary, patent-pending platform designed to transform commercial insurance placement using AI and data at scale.

About Aon Broker Copilot

Broker Copilot represents a fundamental shift in how commercial insurance placement works. Built on artificial intelligence and large-language models, the platform streamlines broker workflows, improves placement strategy, and delivers better outcomes for clients navigating volatile risk environments.

The platform leverages one of the industry's largest repositories of structured risk trading data, transforming what was previously anecdotal market knowledge into actionable, real-time intelligence.

Technical Leadership

As the React Tech Lead, I led a team of 8 React developers building the frontend application that puts this powerful AI and analytics capability into brokers' hands. The project presented unique challenges at the intersection of complex data visualization, real-time analytics, and intuitive user experience design.

Team & Architecture:

Led 8 React developers through design, development, and launch
Built on Aon's in-house design system and component library for enterprise consistency
TypeScript throughout for type safety across a complex domain model
Tight integration with backend AI/ML services and predictive analytics engines

Key Technical Challenges:

Complex Data Visualization: Presenting market intelligence, pricing trends, and carrier appetite data in digestible, actionable formats
Real-Time Updates: Live intelligence on market conditions required careful state management and efficient data fetching strategies
Enterprise Scale: Supporting Aon's global broker workforce with performance and reliability requirements
Design System Integration: Extending and contributing to Aon's internal component library while maintaining design consistency

Platform Capabilities

The application we built enables brokers to:

Capture Comprehensive Market Data: For the first time, structuring data from all submissions—quoted, bound, or declined—providing visibility into market behavior beyond just completed deals
Access Real-Time Intelligence: Live pricing, carrier appetite, and market sentiment at decision points throughout the placement process
Improve Submission Quality: AI-assisted preparation ensuring higher-quality submissions and more strategic carrier engagement
Understand Market Dynamics: Predictive analytics surfacing trends and opportunities that would be invisible through traditional methods

Integration with Aon Ecosystem

Broker Copilot integrates with Aon's Risk Analyzer suite, creating a comprehensive analytics platform for risk assessment and placement. The frontend needed to seamlessly pull from multiple data sources while presenting a unified, intuitive interface.

Launch & Impact

The platform launched in June 2025, initially rolling out to U.S. National Property and London Global Broking Centre Property teams. The phased expansion continues through 2025-2026 as additional business lines and geographies come online.

Broker Copilot fills what Aon leadership describes as "a critical intelligence gap" in dynamic markets—giving brokers and clients visibility into actual market behavior rather than relying solely on historical completed transactions.

Technical Achievements

Consistent UI/UX: Leveraged and extended Aon's design system to deliver a polished, enterprise-grade application
Performance at Scale: Optimized rendering for complex data grids and visualizations handling large datasets
Accessibility: WCAG compliance ensuring the platform works for all users
Responsive Design: Full functionality across desktop and tablet form factors for brokers in various work environments

Working on Broker Copilot provided the opportunity to build a product at the cutting edge of AI-assisted enterprise tooling, directly impacting how one of the world's largest insurance brokers serves their clients.