Who leads AI at Berkshire Hathaway?

AI at Berkshire Hathaway is led by Hari Govind (President and CEO, brk tech); Rebecca Weekly (Chief Technology Officer, brk tech); Anju Gupta (Chief Data and AI Officer, BNSF Railway). Ownership of AI on the org chart: No group AI chief; subsidiary CEOs own AI, with brk tech (Hari Govind) as shared help.

What AI platform does Berkshire Hathaway use?

Berkshire Hathaway has no group-wide AI platform; BNSF and GEICO build their own tools in-house, and brk tech, a group technology unit, writes shared reference architectures for applied AI and hybrid cloud (2026).

Which AI models does Berkshire Hathaway use?

Berkshire Hathaway names no group model provider; GEICO's claims engineers reportedly ran agent fleets on Anthropic's Claude tooling (Oct 2026), BNSF builds its own machine learning and optimization models, and the utilities buy AI camera systems.

How many Berkshire employees use AI?

Berkshire Hathaway has not disclosed how many of its about 387,800 employees use AI tools; the clearest scale figures are operational, such as BNSF's AI review of more than 35 million wayside detector readings a day (Oct 2025).

How far has AI spread at Berkshire Hathaway?

Berkshire Hathaway has reported no business return it credits to AI, for the group or any subsidiary: Greg Abel told CNBC on Sep 2, 2026 that Berkshire has a lot of visibility into how its companies use AI and the benefits it delivers, without giving a figure, Ajit Jain said in May 2026 that AI works mainly as a productivity tool for routine labor, and the nearest company figures, such as BNSF's Automated Yard Check replacing a shift of manual container inventory work, are operational, with no cost, revenue or headcount figure. Berkshire Hathaway has not reported a company-wide AI rollout either: no group or subsidiary AI tool has a published user count among its about 387,800 employees, and no executive owns AI across the group, which leaves it to subsidiary CEOs and to officers such as BNSF's Chief Data and AI Officer. AI does run in production at BNSF, GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway Energy's utilities. Berkshire Hathaway stays at Experimenting until one of its companies reports a return it credits to AI, or Berkshire states how many employees use an AI tool and names the executive who owns it.

Verified Oct 31, 2026

Berkshire Hathaway

Experimenting

Conglomerate
~387,800 employees (2025)
No group AI chief
brk tech shared tech unit (2026)
No AI return or user count

Berkshire Hathaway deploys AI subsidiary by subsidiary, with no group-wide AI platform or chief AI officer: BNSF Railway, GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway Energy build or buy their own tools, and brk tech, a group technology unit, offers shared engineering help. CEO Greg Abel said in May 2026 that Berkshire would build technology instead of only buying it and use narrow AI that keeps people in charge, gives repeatable answers and adds clear value. Berkshire reports no return it credits to AI, no AI spending and no AI user count.

berkshirehathaway.com

Their approach to AI

The platform: Berkshire Hathaway has no group-wide AI platform; BNSF and GEICO build their own tools in-house, and brk tech, a group technology unit, writes shared reference architectures for applied AI and hybrid cloud (2026).
The models: Berkshire Hathaway names no group model provider; GEICO's claims engineers reportedly ran agent fleets on Anthropic's Claude tooling (Oct 2026), BNSF builds its own machine learning and optimization models, and the utilities buy AI camera systems.
The reach: Berkshire Hathaway has not disclosed how many of its about 387,800 employees use AI tools; the clearest scale figures are operational, such as BNSF's AI review of more than 35 million wayside detector readings a day (Oct 2025).
The catch: Berkshire Hathaway reports no AI spending, no return it credits to AI and no AI user count, and two 2026 incidents drew in regulators: Pennsylvania had GEICO change an AI-assisted review that cost a customer her coverage, and unions say the FRA had BNSF switch off its AutoRouter dispatching tool.

Snapshot

Employees: ~387,800; Dec 31, 2025; about 80% in the U.S. (2025 Form 10-K)
Technology budget: Not disclosed; No group or subsidiary technology or AI budget published; GEICO's public cloud bill passed $300M a year by 2023
AI/ML headcount: Not disclosed; BNSF planned 1,000 technology hires from Oct 2025; GEICO opened a Palo Alto AI/ML office in Oct 2025
Who owns AI: Subsidiary CEOs; No group AI chief; brk tech, led by Hari Govind, offers shared technology help (2026)
Platform: None group-wide; BNSF and GEICO build in-house; brk tech writes shared reference architectures
Models: Not disclosed; GEICO claims engineers reportedly used Anthropic's Claude tooling (Oct 2026); BNSF builds its own models
Reach: Not disclosed; No user count published for any employee AI tool
Use cases: No count published; Most documented production work is at BNSF, GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway Energy

Key findings

Berkshire Hathaway has not reported a return it credits to AI anywhere in the group, nor how many of its about 387,800 employees use AI tools, and Ajit Jain said in May 2026 that AI works mainly as a productivity tool for routine labor so far, with AI judgment on pricing or claims still years away.
Berkshire Hathaway has no group AI platform or chief AI officer: its 2025 Form 10-K says the subsidiaries run with few centralized functions, and the board told shareholders in 2025 that each subsidiary must cover AI in its own annual risk assessment.
Greg Abel told shareholders on May 2, 2026 that Berkshire Hathaway will be a builder of technology rather than just a buyer, will not do AI for the sake of AI, and will use narrow AI in which people make the decisions and answers must be repeatable.
brk tech, a San Francisco-based technology unit led by former BNSF and GEICO technology chief Hari Govind, says it helps Berkshire Hathaway subsidiaries build their own technology with shared AI, hybrid cloud and cyber reference architectures; Berkshire's 2025 annual report, 10-K and 2026 proxy do not mention it.
BNSF is the group's most documented AI user: it created the in-house bnsf | tech unit in Mar 2025, hired Chief Data and AI Officer Anju Gupta in Jun 2025, and said in Oct 2025 that its AI reviews more than 35 million wayside detector readings a day, alongside AI for railcar switching and intermodal container tracking.

Where Berkshire sits

Stage: Experimenting
Berkshire Hathaway has reported no business return it credits to AI, for the group or any subsidiary: Greg Abel told CNBC on Sep 2, 2026 that Berkshire has a lot of visibility into how its companies use AI and the benefits it delivers, without giving a figure, Ajit Jain said in May 2026 that AI works mainly as a productivity tool for routine labor, and the nearest company figures, such as BNSF's Automated Yard Check replacing a shift of manual container inventory work, are operational, with no cost, revenue or headcount figure. Berkshire Hathaway has not reported a company-wide AI rollout either: no group or subsidiary AI tool has a published user count among its about 387,800 employees, and no executive owns AI across the group, which leaves it to subsidiary CEOs and to officers such as BNSF's Chief Data and AI Officer. AI does run in production at BNSF, GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway Energy's utilities. Berkshire Hathaway stays at Experimenting until one of its companies reports a return it credits to AI, or Berkshire states how many employees use an AI tool and names the executive who owns it.
How the stages are defined
Ownership: No group AI chief; subsidiary CEOs own AI, with brk tech (Hari Govind) as shared help
Platform: Hybrid: No group platform; subsidiaries build in-house and buy point tools
Models: Not disclosed group-wide; Claude reported in GEICO engineering, in-house models at BNSF
Hosting: GEICO: private cloud in two colocation data centers plus public cloud, reported as mostly Microsoft Azure; brk tech: Azure and Oracle Cloud; others undisclosed
Reach: Not disclosed; no group-wide employee AI tool

How they deploy

Build instead of buy

Greg Abel told shareholders on May 2, 2026 that Berkshire Hathaway will be a builder of technology rather than just a buyer of it. According to a third-party transcript of the meeting, Abel traced the idea to a GEICO operational review about four years earlier, said the subsidiaries had bought disconnected software that kept them from their own data, and said Berkshire moved senior technology leaders from GEICO to BNSF and Berkshire Hathaway Energy and hired software engineers and developers. BNSF's then technology chief Hari Govind described the same shift in Oct 2025, saying BNSF was becoming more builders than buyers.

Narrow AI under three rules

Greg Abel said Berkshire Hathaway uses only narrow AI, under three rules: people review and act on every recommendation, a system asked the same question on the same data must give the same answer, and each use must add clear value to the business (May 2026 transcript; Business Insider reported the same rules). Abel said Berkshire is not going to do AI for the sake of AI, according to CNBC. brk tech's website defines narrow AI in the same terms, as AI-powered decision making with a human in the loop, auditable predictability and a focus on outcomes.

Ownership stays with the subsidiaries

Berkshire Hathaway's 2025 Form 10-K says its subsidiaries are managed on an unusually decentralized basis with few centralized functions, and Greg Abel's Feb 2026 letter promised that decisions will stay with the managers closest to each business. In its 2025 proxy the board opposed a shareholder proposal for an independent AI board committee, saying each subsidiary must cover AI in its annual risk assessment, and about 3.5% of votes cast supported the proposal.

A shared technology unit, brk tech

brk tech, which calls itself a Berkshire Hathaway group company and is based in San Francisco, says its job is to help subsidiaries move from buying technology to building it: placing engineering and AI leaders inside operating companies, writing reference architectures for conversational AI, AI developer tools, big data, hybrid cloud and cybersecurity, sharing code across the group, and using Berkshire's scale to negotiate technology partnerships. Hari Govind leads brk tech as President and CEO, and CTO Rebecca Weekly's Sep 2026 conference bio says she directs technology for six Berkshire consumer product companies and hybrid cloud and sovereign AI work across the group.

AI as power demand and as an investment

Greg Abel wrote in Feb 2026 that electricity demand from AI computing is driving a large investment cycle at Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and that infrastructure built for hyperscalers and data centers must be paid for by those customers. Abel told CNBC on Sep 2, 2026 that about 8% of BHE's Iowa load came from data centers in 2025, and that Berkshire's view into how its own companies use AI added to its interest in Alphabet, in which Berkshire agreed in Jun 2026 to buy $10 billion of shares in a private placement.

Deployment model: Berkshire Hathaway deploys AI through its operating companies. Insurance reports to Vice Chairman Ajit Jain, the 32 consumer products, service and retailing businesses to President Adam Johnson, and BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Pilot, McLane and the industrial and building products businesses directly to Greg Abel (Dec 2025 announcement). The AI work sits inside those companies: BNSF's in-house bnsf | tech unit and Chief Data and AI Officer Anju Gupta; GEICO's Tech and Product organization under Vijay Raghavendra, with a Palo Alto office for data and AI/ML engineering opened in Oct 2025; and BHE's utilities, which buy AI wildfire camera systems. brk tech, a group technology unit, places engineers and AI leaders in subsidiaries and writes shared reference architectures; Berkshire Hathaway has not said whom brk tech reports to.
Model providers: Berkshire Hathaway has not named a model provider for the group. GEICO senior staff engineer Ford Prior said in an Oct 2026 conference talk that GEICO's claims technology team ran fleets of AI agents in one-day war rooms on a $1,000 token budget each, using Anthropic's Claude tooling according to a StartupHub.ai summary of the talk. BNSF builds its own machine learning, machine vision and optimization models, some of them patented or patent-pending (Oct 2025). Other subsidiaries buy AI inside vendor products: Pano AI cameras at PacifiCorp, Motive AI dashcams in GEICO's commercial fleet program, Presto voice AI in Dairy Queen drive-thrus, and AI-supported features in HomeServices of America's Maestro platform.
Data and infrastructure: GEICO started an Open Compute Project hardware program in 2023 after its public cloud bill passed $300 million a year, concentrated with one provider, and has opened two new colocation data centers with more than 1,000 OCP servers for an OpenStack and Kubernetes private cloud meant for AI/ML, analytics and core insurance systems (OCP white paper, Oct 2025). GEICO aims to bring at least half of its cloud workloads back in-house, by 2028 in one passage of that paper and by 2029 in another, and reports more than 50% lower cost per compute core and more than 60% lower cost per gigabyte of storage than its earlier hardware and cloud options. The Stack reported in Oct 2024 that public documentation pointed to Microsoft Azure as GEICO's main cloud. BNSF processes more than 35 million wayside detector readings a day (Oct 2025) but has not said where its models run, and brk tech recruits engineers for hybrid and multi-cloud work on Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Platforms and internal tools

brk tech2026
brk tech is a San Francisco-based technology unit that calls itself a Berkshire Hathaway group company and works with the subsidiaries on talent, reference architectures, shared code and technology partnerships. brk tech's applied AI program aims to turn legacy systems into AI-ready foundations and deploy data models, open-source tooling and secure AI architectures, under a narrow AI definition that requires a human in the loop, auditable predictability and measurable outcomes.
Users
Berkshire Hathaway subsidiaries
Source
bnsf | techMar 2025
bnsf | tech is BNSF's in-house technology division, set up to build more of the railroad's software itself instead of buying off-the-shelf products, with internal builds every two weeks and improvements every 90 days. BNSF said in Oct 2025 that it planned to hire 1,000 people for the effort over the following year and had recently hired 100 engineers from state colleges.
Users
BNSF Railway, about 35,000 employees (end of 2025)
Source
GEICO AI Virtual AssistantBy 2026
GEICO's AI Virtual Assistant answers policy questions, shows coverages, helps retrieve documents and tells customers when they are talking to AI, with a live agent available on request.
Users
GEICO policyholders
Source
GEICO private cloud on Open Compute hardware2023 to 2025
GEICO's private cloud runs OpenStack and Kubernetes on more than 1,000 Open Compute Project servers in two new colocation data centers, built to host AI/ML, analytics and core insurance workloads as GEICO moves at least half of its cloud workloads back in-house.
Source
PacifiCorp Wildfire Intelligence CenterMay 2025
PacifiCorp's Wildfire Intelligence Center in Medford, Oregon watches feeds from AI cameras that flag possible smoke, and its staff confirm each detection and alert system operators when conditions meet the utility's criteria for cutting power. PacifiCorp has installed 18 Pano AI cameras since 2024.
Source
HomeServices of America MaestroMar 2026
Maestro is an AI-supported platform that HomeServices of America, part of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, launched to combine consumer search, CRM, marketing and transaction management for its agents across company-owned brokerages and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices franchise network.
Users
HomeServices of America agents
Source

Vendors and partners

Anthropic2026
Claude tooling for GEICO's claims technology agent war rooms · StartupHub.ai's summary of Ford Prior's Oct 2026 talk says the GEICO team used Anthropic's harness and models; GEICO has not announced a contract.
Microsoft Azure
Public cloud reported as GEICO's main provider; in brk tech's hybrid cloud hiring · The Stack reported in Oct 2024 that public documentation pointed to Azure as the provider behind GEICO's cloud spending, which GEICO is partly moving back in-house.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure2026
Cloud named in brk tech's hybrid and multi-cloud engineering roles
Open Compute Project2023
Open hardware designs for GEICO's private cloud
Pano AI2024
AI wildfire detection cameras for PacifiCorp · PacifiCorp reported 18 cameras covering 7,462 miles of high fire-risk lines, with 1,612 smoke detections and 64 fire alerts in 2025 (Jun 2026).
MotiveNov 2025
AI dashcams and fleet data in GEICO's commercial auto telematics program
Presto2026
Voice AI ordering for Dairy Queen drive-thrus · Dairy Queen expanded its Presto test from company-operated restaurants to select franchisees in Apr 2026.
TractableMay 2021
AI review of body shop repair estimates for GEICO · GEICO has not said whether it still uses the tool.

Leadership

AI, data and platform leaders

Hari Govind

President and CEO, brk tech

Hari Govind leads brk tech as President and CEO, according to its website. Govind held senior roles at Facebook, Microsoft, Honeywell and Target, joined GEICO as Chief Information and Technology Officer in Feb 2023, moved to BNSF as Vice President and CTO in Jan 2025, where he led the railroad's in-house technology push, and said in Oct 2025 that BNSF was becoming more builders than buyers.

Rebecca Weekly

Chief Technology Officer, brk tech

Unconfirmed

Rebecca Weekly is CTO of brk tech according to her Sep 2026 SNIA conference bio, which says she directs technology for six Berkshire consumer product companies and hybrid cloud and sovereign AI work across the group. Weekly earlier led GEICO's platform and infrastructure engineering, including its move of workloads from public cloud to a private cloud, worked at Cloudflare and Intel, and was president and chair of the Open Compute Project.

Anju Gupta

Chief Data and AI Officer, BNSF Railway

Anju Gupta became BNSF's Chief Data and AI Officer in Jun 2025 after leading AI adoption at Northwestern Mutual and data and AI/ML work at Enterprise Holdings, Syngenta and Monsanto. Gupta said in Oct 2025 that AI moves BNSF toward predicting failures before they happen, and Katie Farmer said data scientists began applying to BNSF once Gupta arrived.

Vijay Raghavendra

Chief Technology and Product Officer, GEICO

Unconfirmed

Vijay Raghavendra joined GEICO as Chief AI and Product Officer and took the expanded role of Chief Technology and Product Officer when Hari Govind left, according to a Todd Combs memo reported by Coverager. GEICO used that title for Raghavendra in Oct 2025 when it opened a Palo Alto office for data and AI/ML engineering; he earlier worked at Walmart Labs.

Executives

Greg Abel

President and Chief Executive Officer

Greg Abel became Berkshire Hathaway's CEO on Jan 1, 2026 after leading Berkshire Hathaway Energy and, from 2018, overseeing all non-insurance businesses as Vice Chairman. Abel set out Berkshire's narrow AI rules and its aim to build instead of buy technology at the May 2026 annual meeting, serves as Berkshire's Chief Risk Officer, and directly oversees BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Pilot, McLane and the industrial and building products businesses.

Ajit Jain

Vice Chairman, Insurance Operations

Ajit Jain has worked in Berkshire Hathaway's insurance group since 1986 and has been Vice Chairman, Insurance Operations, and a director since 2018, overseeing the insurance businesses, GEICO included. Jain said in May 2025 that the insurers only dabbled in AI and needed to catch up, and in May 2026 that AI works mainly as a productivity tool while judgment on pricing and claims stays with people.

Adam Johnson

President, Consumer Products, Service and Retailing; CEO, NetJets

Adam Johnson has spent nearly 30 years at NetJets, 10 of them as CEO, and on Dec 8, 2025 became President of Berkshire Hathaway's 32 consumer products, service and retailing businesses while keeping the NetJets job.

Katie Farmer

President and CEO, BNSF Railway

Katie Farmer joined Burlington Northern as a management trainee in 1992 and has been BNSF's President and CEO since Jan 1, 2021. Farmer said in Jan 2026 that BNSF will use AI across every part of the railroad, from its customer portal to predictive arrival times, and in Oct 2025 that BNSF must lead its AI deployments with ethics, governance and trust.

Nancy Pierce

CEO, GEICO

Nancy Pierce joined GEICO in 1986, worked across claims, underwriting, product management and regional operations, and became CEO on Dec 8, 2025 after serving as Chief Operating Officer, when Todd Combs left for JPMorgan Chase. Greg Abel said in May 2026 that Pierce's team is balancing pricing, customer retention and growth in policies in force.

Mark Hewett

President and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway Energy

Mark Hewett signed Berkshire Hathaway Energy's 2025 Form 10-K as President and CEO in Feb 2026; BHE's leadership page says he joined MidAmerican Energy in 1987 and most recently ran BHE's pipeline group. BHE's utilities run AI wildfire cameras, and Greg Abel has tied BHE's growth to power demand from AI data centers.

Board

Warren Buffett

Chairman Emeritus and director

Warren Buffett has served Berkshire Hathaway since 1965, stepped down as CEO at the end of 2025 and became Chairman Emeritus, remaining a director, on Sep 18, 2026. Buffett compared AI to nuclear weapons at the 2024 annual meeting and warned of deepfake scams, and in May 2026 said of AI that nobody knows what is going to happen.

AI org map

No central AI office; each subsidiary owns its AI, with a shared group technology unit (brk tech)

Berkshire Hathaway has no chief AI, data or technology officer at the parent company, whose 2025 Form 10-K describes few centralized functions. AI sits with the subsidiaries: insurance under Vice Chairman Ajit Jain, the consumer products, service and retailing businesses under President Adam Johnson, and BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy and the industrial businesses directly under CEO Greg Abel (Dec 2025 announcement). brk tech, led by Hari Govind, works across the group as a shared technology unit, and Howard Buffett became chairman of the board on Sep 18, 2026, when Warren Buffett became Chairman Emeritus.

Berkshire Hathaway has not published a count of its AI, data or technology staff, and its corporate office in Omaha runs few central functions. The technology people sit in the operating companies: BNSF planned to hire 1,000 people for its in-house technology effort in the year from Oct 2025 and places data scientists and operations research experts in its Network Operations Center, and GEICO opened a Palo Alto office in Oct 2025 for data, AI/ML, product and platform engineering. brk tech's website lists a President and CEO and a Chief Talent Officer, Sanjana Anand, whose talent organization at GEICO hired 10,000 people a year.

Reporting lines

Board of Directors
Howard Buffett, Chairman
Warren Buffett became Chairman Emeritus and remains a director (Sep 18, 2026); the Audit Committee oversees cybersecurity risk
- Chief Executive Officer
  Greg Abel
  Also Berkshire's Chief Risk Officer; set the group's narrow AI rules in May 2026
  - Insurance Operations
    Ajit Jain, Vice Chairman
    - GEICO
      Nancy Pierce, CEO
      - GEICO Tech and Product
        Vijay Raghavendra, Chief Technology and Product Officer
        Includes data and AI/ML engineering and the Palo Alto office (Oct 2025); title last confirmed Oct 2025
  - Consumer Products, Service and Retailing
    Adam Johnson, President
    32 businesses; Johnson also remains CEO of NetJets
  - BNSF Railway
    Katie Farmer, President and CEO
    Under Greg Abel's direct oversight (Dec 2025 announcement)
    - BNSF Data and AI
      Anju Gupta, Chief Data and AI Officer
      Works alongside the in-house bnsf | tech unit; Gupta's reporting line and BNSF's current CTO are not published
  - Berkshire Hathaway Energy
    Mark Hewett, President and CEO
    Utilities run AI wildfire cameras; HomeServices of America is part of BHE
    - HomeServices of America
      Chris Kelly, President and CEO
      Launched the AI-supported Maestro platform for agents in Mar 2026
brk tech
Hari Govind, President and CEO
San Francisco-based technology unit that calls itself a Berkshire Hathaway group company; reporting line not published

Berkshire Hathaway has not said whom brk tech reports to or how it is funded. brk tech's website, a 2026 job posting and its CTO's conference bio describe it as a Berkshire Hathaway group company serving the subsidiaries, while Berkshire's 2025 annual report, 2025 Form 10-K, 2026 proxy and second-quarter 2026 10-Q do not mention it. Greg Abel said in May 2026 that senior technology leaders moved from GEICO to BNSF and Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which matches Hari Govind's move to BNSF in Jan 2025; BNSF has not published who holds its CTO role now.

Where the AI workforce sits

Subsidiary technology, data and AI teams
Estimate: Berkshire's 10-K describes few centralized functions, BNSF alone planned 1,000 technology hires from Oct 2025, and GEICO runs its own Tech and Product organization.
~90-99%
brk tech, the shared group technology unit
Estimate: brk tech publishes no headcount; its website lists two executives and its 2026 hiring was for senior engineering roles.
~1-10%

Named people

Group leadership

Greg Abel
President and Chief Executive Officer · Set the narrow AI rules in May 2026
Ajit Jain
Vice Chairman, Insurance Operations
Adam Johnson
President, Consumer Products, Service and Retailing

brk tech, shared group technology

brk tech publishes no headcount; its 2026 hiring included principal cloud engineers for Azure and Oracle Cloud work.

Hari Govind
President and CEO
Rebecca Weekly
Chief Technology Officer · Title from a Sep 2026 conference bio
Sanjana Anand
Chief Talent Officer · Places engineering and technology leaders in subsidiaries

BNSF Railway

Plan to hire 1,000 for technology (Oct 2025)

Katie Farmer
President and CEO
Anju Gupta
Chief Data and AI Officer

GEICO

Nancy Pierce
CEO
Vijay Raghavendra
Chief Technology and Product Officer · Title last confirmed Oct 2025
Ford Prior
Senior staff engineer, claims technology · Ran the $1,000 token agent war rooms (Oct 2026 talk)

Berkshire Hathaway Energy

Mark Hewett
President and CEO
Chris Kelly
President and CEO, HomeServices of America · Launched the Maestro platform in Mar 2026

Consumer businesses

CEOs who described their AI use to Business Insider at the May 2026 annual meeting.

Troy Bader
President and CEO, International Dairy Queen
David Neustein
CEO, Jazwares
Dan Sheridan
CEO, Brooks Running
Pat Egan
President and CEO, See's Candies

Use cases

Berkshire Hathaway has not published a count of AI use cases or a return on any of them. The documented production uses sit in a few subsidiaries: BNSF's predictive maintenance, machine vision, yard automation and switch planning; GEICO's customer AI assistant, AI-assisted underwriting reviews and telematics; AI wildfire cameras at PacifiCorp and NV Energy; and AI in Dairy Queen, Jazwares and Brooks Running operations. Greg Abel requires each AI use to add clear value, but no Berkshire Hathaway company has reported a cost, revenue or headcount figure credited to AI.

Use case	Area	Status
Predictive maintenance from detectors and machine vision BNSF's AI algorithms process more than 35 million wayside detector readings a day to predict maintenance needs, and high-resolution and thermal cameras check for hot or cracked wheels and overloaded cars (Oct 2025).	BNSF Railway	In production
Automated Yard Check for intermodal containers BNSF's Automated Yard Check uses drones, truck-mounted cameras and machine learning to locate containers in 3D, replacing a shift of manual inventory work, and BNSF plans it for most of its 27 intermodal facilities by 2027.	BNSF Railway	In production
AI switch lists BNSF uses an algorithm that analyzes historical data to set the order for assembling merchandise railcars, cutting switch moves so crews spend more time building trains.	BNSF Railway	In production
Load Plan Optimization BNSF's AI-based load planner builds outbound intermodal train load plans in seconds so containers and trailers sit in the right place; BNSF lists it among the AI initiatives it is exploring.	BNSF Railway	Pilot
Predictive ETAs and customer portal Katie Farmer said in Jan 2026 that BNSF is using AI to change its customer portal and give customers more predictive arrival times, and that the AI work is starting to roll out across the railroad.	BNSF Railway	In production
Network planning with data scientists and digital twins BNSF places data scientists and operations research experts in its Network Operations Center and is building digital twins that simulate train operations before dispatch, part of a technology push Katie Farmer described alongside lower terminal dwell and a record first-quarter fuel efficiency in 2026.	BNSF Railway	Pilot
AutoRouter AI dispatching AutoRouter, an AI dispatching tool BNSF had been testing, lined a hazmat train toward a track occupied by a worker near Connell, Washington on Jun 16, 2026 before a dispatcher caught the error; unions say the FRA had BNSF take it offline, and BNSF said it is working on programming fixes.	BNSF Railway	Pilot
Customer Support Agent Assist BNSF is testing AI that gives its customer support team insights to send each inquiry to the right agent.	BNSF Railway	Pilot
AI Virtual Assistant for policyholders GEICO's AI Virtual Assistant answers policy questions, shows coverages and retrieves documents, tells customers they are talking to AI, and hands off to a live agent on request.	GEICO	In production
AI selection for new-policy underwriting review GEICO uses an AI tool to pick new policyholders for further review during its 60-day underwriting period; after a Pennsylvania customer lost her coverage, GEICO agreed in May 2026 to follow the state's guidance on insurers' AI use and to give customers more time and simpler proof of residency.	GEICO	In production
Claims code modernization with agent fleets GEICO's claims technology team ran one-day war rooms in which fleets of AI agents, on a $1,000 token budget each, mapped legacy claims code for rentals, damages and salvage and shipped one change per mission, Ford Prior said in an Oct 2026 talk.	GEICO	Pilot
Commercial fleet telematics with AI dashcams GEICO offers commercial fleets up to 10% off premiums when they install Motive's AI dashcams and fleet tools and share the data, starting with new customers in select states in Nov 2025 and planned nationwide in 2026.	GEICO	In production
Conversational AI Gecko GEICO tested its Gecko mascot as a real-time AI participant on an iHeartMedia podcast in Jun 2026, with GEICO reviewing the character's output and following SAG-AFTRA guidelines.	GEICO	Pilot
Underwriting analysis and internal code Greg Abel said in May 2026 that Ajit Jain's underwriting team uses technology to write and manage internal code, and that computation tools now give underwriters a quick view of about 15 more risks beyond the five largest they could analyze closely before, according to a third-party transcript.	Insurance operations	In production
AI wildfire detection cameras at PacifiCorp PacifiCorp has installed 18 Pano AI cameras since 2024, five each in Oregon and Utah and eight in California, covering 7,462 miles of high fire-risk lines; the cameras produced 1,612 smoke detections and 64 fire alerts in 2025, and staff confirm each one.	Berkshire Hathaway Energy	In production
AI fire cameras at NV Energy NV Energy's two Nevada utilities have installed 25 fire cameras equipped with AI that monitor around the clock and send alerts on new fire starts.	Berkshire Hathaway Energy	In production
Maestro platform for agents HomeServices of America launched Maestro in Mar 2026, an AI-supported platform that puts consumer search, CRM, marketing and transaction management in one system for agents at its owned brokerages and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices franchises.	HomeServices of America	In production
Voice AI ordering in drive-thrus Dairy Queen expanded its test of AI voice ordering in drive-thrus to 50 more restaurants in spring 2026, and CEO Troy Bader said the aim is to use labor more efficiently, not to displace it.	Dairy Queen	Pilot
Customer feedback analysis Dairy Queen used AI to analyze 100,000 pieces of fan feedback and pick out common themes and trends, Troy Bader said in May 2026.	Dairy Queen	In production
Forecasting, supply chain and product placement Jazwares, the Squishmallows maker, applies AI to forecasting, production, supply chain logistics and warehouse operations, and uses AI agents to study demographics and decide which products to sell in each territory, CEO David Neustein said in May 2026.	Jazwares	In production
Finance, marketing and back office Brooks Running uses AI in finance, marketing and back-office work and is moving the resources it frees into demand creation and sales, CEO Dan Sheridan said in May 2026.	Brooks Running	In production
Applied AI program for subsidiaries brk tech says it partners with subsidiaries to turn legacy systems into AI-ready foundations and to deploy data models, open-source tooling and secure AI architectures under its narrow AI definition.	Group (brk tech)	Announced

Adoption

Berkshire Hathaway publishes no AI user counts, so adoption shows up company by company. BNSF has the deepest record, with AI in maintenance, yard and network operations, an in-house technology unit since Mar 2025 and a Chief Data and AI Officer since Jun 2025. GEICO runs a customer AI assistant and AI-assisted underwriting reviews and is rebuilding its infrastructure and code in-house, and BHE's utilities use AI cameras for wildfire detection. Among the consumer businesses Business Insider interviewed in May 2026, Jazwares and Brooks Running described AI across several functions, Dairy Queen was expanding a drive-thru test, and See's Candies CEO Pat Egan said his business is at the front end of AI.

By the numbers

Wayside detector readings BNSF's AI reviews daily: 35M+; BNSF, Oct 2025; Berkshire publishes no group-wide AI user count

AI fire cameras at NV Energy's utilities: 25; BHE 2025 Form 10-K, Feb 2026; PacifiCorp separately reports 18 Pano AI cameras since 2024 (Jun 2026)

BNSF technology hiring plan: 1,000; People BNSF planned to hire over a year for its in-house tech effort, which builds its AI tools (Oct 2025)

Employees: ~387,800; Berkshire and its subsidiaries at Dec 31, 2025 (2025 Form 10-K)

Rollout, first pilot to today

May 2021
GEICO said it would use Tractable's AI Review to double-check repair estimates sent in by body shops.
Repairer Driven News
2023
GEICO started an Open Compute Project hardware program to move workloads from public cloud into its own private cloud, with AI/ML among the target workloads.
Open Compute Project
Feb 2023
GEICO hired Hari Govind as Chief Information and Technology Officer to lead a technology overhaul.
Coverager
2024
PacifiCorp installed its first Pano AI wildfire detection cameras.
The Source Weekly
Jan 2025
Hari Govind moved from GEICO to BNSF as Vice President and CTO to lead the railroad's in-house technology push.
Progressive Railroading
Mar 2025
BNSF created bnsf | tech, an in-house division to build its own technology instead of buying off-the-shelf products.
Progressive Railroading
May 2025
PacifiCorp opened its Wildfire Intelligence Center in Medford, Oregon, which watches AI cameras that flag possible smoke.
OPB
May 2025
Berkshire Hathaway shareholders rejected a proposal for an independent AI board committee, which the board had opposed.
Form 8-K
Jun 2025
BNSF named Anju Gupta its Chief Data and AI Officer to lead its data and AI strategy.
CDO Magazine
Oct 2025
GEICO opened a Palo Alto office for data and AI/ML engineering, product development, platform engineering and cybersecurity.
Insurance Business
Nov 2025
GEICO and Motive launched premium discounts for commercial fleets that install Motive's AI dashcams and share the data.
Motive
2026
brk tech, a group technology unit led by Hari Govind, began recruiting engineers and AI leaders to work with Berkshire subsidiaries.
brk tech
Mar 2026
HomeServices of America launched Maestro, an AI-supported platform for its real estate agents.
International Finance
Apr 2026
Dairy Queen expanded its Presto voice AI drive-thru test from company-operated restaurants to select franchisees.
QSR Web
May 2026
Greg Abel set out Berkshire Hathaway's narrow AI rules and its aim to build instead of buy technology at his first annual meeting as CEO.
CNBC
Oct 2026
GEICO engineer Ford Prior described claims technology war rooms in which AI agent fleets mapped legacy code on a $1,000 token budget per mission.
AI Engineer

Economics & controls

Spend and ROI

Technology budget

Berkshire Hathaway does not report a technology or AI budget for the group or any subsidiary. The clearest disclosed technology cost is GEICO's: its public cloud bill passed $300 million a year by 2023, which led it to build a private cloud that it says costs more than 50% less per compute core and more than 60% less per gigabyte of storage (Oct 2025). Greg Abel wrote in Feb 2026 that AI computing demand is driving a large investment cycle at Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and that infrastructure built for data centers must be paid for by those customers.

What AI itself costs

Berkshire Hathaway has not disclosed what it spends on AI. Greg Abel said in May 2026 that a company can spend an immense amount of money on AI and that Berkshire insists on knowing the problem and the added value first, according to a third-party transcript. One of the few AI cost figures on record is the $1,000 token budget GEICO's claims technology team set for each one-day agent war room (Oct 2026).

Reported ROI

Berkshire Hathaway has reported no financial return on AI for the group or any subsidiary. Greg Abel told CNBC in Sep 2026 that Berkshire has a lot of visibility into how its companies use AI and the benefits they get, without giving figures. The closest company figures are operational, such as BNSF's statement that Automated Yard Check replaces a shift of manual inventory work (Oct 2025) and PacifiCorp's 1,612 AI smoke detections in 2025, and none is stated in cost, revenue or headcount terms.

Productivity statements

Ajit Jain said in May 2026 that AI so far works mainly as a productivity tool and a way to reduce routine labor costs, and that AI weighing trade-offs in pricing risk or settling claims is still years away. Dairy Queen CEO Troy Bader said voice ordering is about using labor more efficiently, not displacing it, and Brooks Running CEO Dan Sheridan said the gains from AI in finance, marketing and back office go into demand creation and sales (May 2026).

Headcount

Berkshire Hathaway and its subsidiaries employed about 387,800 people at the end of 2025, including about 42,600 in insurance and about 35,000 at BNSF. Ajit Jain credited former GEICO CEO Todd Combs in May 2025 with about $2 billion in annual savings from workforce reductions after GEICO cut tens of thousands of jobs, and did not attribute the cuts to AI. Katie Farmer said in May 2026 that technology has cut most BNSF train crews from five people to two over time and asked regulators to let railroads automate further as autonomous trucks arrive.

Governance and risk

Risk sits with each subsidiary

Berkshire Hathaway places AI risk on its subsidiaries: the board said in its 2025 proxy that each subsidiary's required annual risk assessment covers new technologies such as AI, with the Audit Committee reviewing how Berkshire manages risk. Shareholders rejected an independent AI board committee at the May 3, 2025 meeting, with about 3.5% of votes cast in favor, and Greg Abel wrote in Feb 2026 that the CEO serves as Berkshire's Chief Risk Officer.

Narrow AI rules

Greg Abel's May 2026 rules require people to review and act on AI recommendations, repeatable answers from a fixed data set, and clear added value for each use. brk tech's website states the same three tests as a human in the loop, auditable predictability and outcome-driven decisions.

Regulators and incidents

Pennsylvania's attorney general announced on May 26, 2026 that GEICO, without admitting a violation, would follow the state insurance department's guidance on AI use and change an AI-assisted review that left a new policyholder without coverage. Rail unions asked the Federal Railroad Administration to investigate BNSF's AutoRouter dispatching tool after a Jun 16, 2026 incident near Connell, Washington, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen says the FRA had BNSF turn it off. Katie Farmer said in Oct 2025 that BNSF must lead its AI deployments with ethics, governance and trust.

Cyber and deepfakes

Berkshire Hathaway opened the question session of its May 2026 meeting with a deepfake video of Warren Buffett made without his input, and Greg Abel called deepfakes and cyberattacks a significant risk the company manages every day. Each business group's chief information security officer reports at least once a year on its cyber program, significant incidents go to Berkshire, and the board's Audit Committee oversees the program (2025 Form 10-K). Ajit Jain said Berkshire is staying largely on the sidelines of cyber insurance because it cannot yet model how bad losses could get and prices are falling.

Disclosed regulation risk

Berkshire Hathaway's 2025 Form 10-K lists data privacy and AI laws, including rules on the use of AI tools, as a risk that could bring reputational damage and significant penalties. GEICO's AI Virtual Assistant tells customers when they are talking to AI and offers a live agent, and GEICO said human oversight governs its AI Gecko (Jun 2026).

Recent signals

Oct 21, 2026
GEICO senior staff engineer Ford Prior described claims technology war rooms in which fleets of AI agents mapped legacy claims code and shipped one change per mission on a $1,000 token budget.
AI Engineer
Sep 18, 2026
Berkshire Hathaway named Warren Buffett Chairman Emeritus, keeping him on the board, and elected his son Howard Buffett chairman; Greg Abel remains CEO.
Berkshire Hathaway
Sep 2, 2026
Greg Abel told CNBC that powering AI data centers is a significant opportunity for Berkshire Hathaway Energy and that Berkshire's view into its companies' AI use added to its interest in Alphabet.
CNBC
Aug 27, 2026
Rail unions said BNSF's AutoRouter AI dispatching tool lined a hazmat train toward an occupied track in June and asked for an independent review before it returns to service.
Montana Right Now
Jun 23, 2026
PacifiCorp said its 18 Pano AI cameras cover 7,462 miles of high fire-risk lines and produced 1,612 smoke detections and 64 fire alerts in 2025.
The Source Weekly
Jun 15, 2026
GEICO tested an AI version of its Gecko mascot in a live podcast conversation, saying it reviews the character's real-time output.
Repairer Driven News
Jun 1, 2026
Berkshire Hathaway agreed to buy $10 billion of Alphabet shares in a private placement that Alphabet said would fund AI computing capacity.
CNBC
May 26, 2026
Pennsylvania's attorney general announced that GEICO will follow state guidance on insurers' AI use and change an AI-assisted review that cost a new policyholder her coverage.
Insurance Journal
May 6, 2026
The CEOs of Dairy Queen, Jazwares, Brooks Running and See's Candies told Business Insider how far each business has taken AI, from AI agents at Jazwares to early steps at See's.
Business Insider via AOL
May 2, 2026
Greg Abel told shareholders that Berkshire Hathaway will not do AI for the sake of AI, and Ajit Jain said AI works mainly as a productivity tool so far.
CNBC
Mar 2026
HomeServices of America launched Maestro, an AI-supported platform that combines search, CRM, marketing and transactions for its agents.
International Finance
Feb 28, 2026
Greg Abel's first shareholder letter said GEICO is investing in technology to improve efficiency and service and that AI computing demand is driving a large investment cycle at Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
Letter to shareholders
Jan 2026
Katie Farmer said BNSF will use AI across every part of the railroad, including its customer portal and predictive arrival times.
Trains
Dec 8, 2025
Berkshire Hathaway named Nancy Pierce GEICO CEO after Todd Combs left for JPMorgan Chase, and made Adam Johnson President of its consumer products, service and retailing businesses.
Form 8-K
Nov 18, 2025
GEICO and Motive launched discounts of up to 10% for commercial fleets that install Motive's AI dashcams and share the data.
Motive

Quick answers

How does Berkshire Hathaway deploy AI?: Berkshire Hathaway deploys AI subsidiary by subsidiary, with no group-wide AI platform or chief AI officer: BNSF Railway, GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway Energy build or buy their own tools, and brk tech, a group technology unit, offers shared engineering help. CEO Greg Abel said in May 2026 that Berkshire would build technology instead of only buying it and use narrow AI that keeps people in charge, gives repeatable answers and adds clear value. Berkshire reports no return it credits to AI, no AI spending and no AI user count.
What does Berkshire Hathaway use AI for?: Berkshire Hathaway has not published a count of AI use cases or a return on any of them. The documented production uses sit in a few subsidiaries: BNSF's predictive maintenance, machine vision, yard automation and switch planning; GEICO's customer AI assistant, AI-assisted underwriting reviews and telematics; AI wildfire cameras at PacifiCorp and NV Energy; and AI in Dairy Queen, Jazwares and Brooks Running operations. Greg Abel requires each AI use to add clear value, but no Berkshire Hathaway company has reported a cost, revenue or headcount figure credited to AI.
Who leads AI at Berkshire Hathaway?: AI at Berkshire Hathaway is led by Hari Govind (President and CEO, brk tech); Rebecca Weekly (Chief Technology Officer, brk tech); Anju Gupta (Chief Data and AI Officer, BNSF Railway). Ownership of AI on the org chart: No group AI chief; subsidiary CEOs own AI, with brk tech (Hari Govind) as shared help.
What AI platform does Berkshire Hathaway use?: Berkshire Hathaway has no group-wide AI platform; BNSF and GEICO build their own tools in-house, and brk tech, a group technology unit, writes shared reference architectures for applied AI and hybrid cloud (2026).
Which AI models does Berkshire Hathaway use?: Berkshire Hathaway names no group model provider; GEICO's claims engineers reportedly ran agent fleets on Anthropic's Claude tooling (Oct 2026), BNSF builds its own machine learning and optimization models, and the utilities buy AI camera systems.
How many Berkshire employees use AI?: Berkshire Hathaway has not disclosed how many of its about 387,800 employees use AI tools; the clearest scale figures are operational, such as BNSF's AI review of more than 35 million wayside detector readings a day (Oct 2025).
How far has AI spread at Berkshire Hathaway?: Berkshire Hathaway has reported no business return it credits to AI, for the group or any subsidiary: Greg Abel told CNBC on Sep 2, 2026 that Berkshire has a lot of visibility into how its companies use AI and the benefits it delivers, without giving a figure, Ajit Jain said in May 2026 that AI works mainly as a productivity tool for routine labor, and the nearest company figures, such as BNSF's Automated Yard Check replacing a shift of manual container inventory work, are operational, with no cost, revenue or headcount figure. Berkshire Hathaway has not reported a company-wide AI rollout either: no group or subsidiary AI tool has a published user count among its about 387,800 employees, and no executive owns AI across the group, which leaves it to subsidiary CEOs and to officers such as BNSF's Chief Data and AI Officer. AI does run in production at BNSF, GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway Energy's utilities. Berkshire Hathaway stays at Experimenting until one of its companies reports a return it credits to AI, or Berkshire states how many employees use an AI tool and names the executive who owns it.

Open questions

Whom does brk tech report to, how is it funded, and which Berkshire Hathaway subsidiaries use its engineers and reference architectures?
Will Berkshire Hathaway report any financial return on AI, given that Greg Abel requires each AI use to add clear value but has published no figures?
How much do Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiaries spend on AI and technology, and how many AI, data and software staff do they employ?
Which model providers and clouds do GEICO, BNSF and the other subsidiaries use, and does any of them run models in its own data centers?
How many Berkshire Hathaway employees have a sanctioned generative AI assistant, and which one?
What cost, capacity or safety return have BNSF's AI systems delivered, from predictive maintenance and Automated Yard Check to switch lists and predictive ETAs?
Is BNSF's AutoRouter dispatching tool back in service, and what did the Federal Railroad Administration require?
Where else does GEICO use AI in underwriting and claims, and has it changed its AI-assisted review outside Pennsylvania?
Who is BNSF's chief technology officer now that Hari Govind leads brk tech, and is Vijay Raghavendra still GEICO's Chief Technology and Product Officer?
Did HomeServices of America's Maestro reach all its agents, as a partner brokerage expected for Aug 2026, and what has it changed for them?
What results did Dairy Queen's voice AI test, Jazwares' AI agents and Brooks Running's back-office AI deliver?
Does GEICO still use Tractable's AI Review for repair estimates, which it adopted in 2021?

Sources

Berkshire Hathaway and its companies

Filings

Partners and industry

Annual meeting records

News

Data confidence

Confirmed: Stated in a primary or reputable public source.
Estimated: Derived or approximated from public reporting.
Unconfirmed: Reported, but not yet corroborated.

Berkshire Hathaway profile · Enterprise AI diffusion report by Imagine · facts checked against their sources on Oct 31, 2026

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