Good morning. Welcome to the WTW Earnings Conference Call. Please refer to WTWCo.com for the press release and supplemental information that were issued earlier today. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for the next three months on WTW's website. Some of the comments in today's call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed today, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements unless required by law. For a more detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, investors should review the Forward-Looking Statements section of the earnings press release issued this morning, as well as in the most recent Form 10-K and other subsequent WTW-SEC filings. During the call, certain non-GAAP financial measures may be discussed. To provide direct comparability with prior periods, all commentary regarding the company's revenue growth results will be on a non-GAAP organic basis unless specifically stated otherwise. For reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures, as well as other information regarding these measures, please refer to the most recent earnings release and other materials in the investor relations section of the company's website. I will now turn the call over to Carl Hess, WTW's Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for WTW's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today is Andrew Krasner, our Chief Financial Officer, and Spike Lipkin, our Chief AI Officer. We'll share his perspective and touch on our integration efforts following our acquisition of New Front. Julie Gebauer, our President of Health, Wealth, and Career, and Lucy Clark, our President of Risk and Broking, are also joining us for our Q&A session. As a first order of business, I want to note my deep appreciation for our colleagues in the Middle East who've remained available to address client needs even as their lives have been disrupted by conflict. I also want to express our ongoing commitment to supporting our colleagues and clients as they manage this stressful environment. Now, I'll turn to our results. In the first quarter, we delivered 3% organic growth with adjusted operating margin of 22.3% and $3.72 of adjusted diluted earnings per share. Revenue came in at the low end of our plan as we saw the effects of a more challenging and volatile global market environment during the quarter, particularly considering our meaningful presence in the Middle East region. Despite the slower-than-expected growth, our ongoing efforts to enhance efficiency helped us generate operating leverage and 70 basis points of year-over-year margin expansion. External conditions in the first quarter were mixed. We saw high health care inflation, regulatory changes, and a higher volume of corporate transactions, along with elevated geopolitical risk, economic uncertainty, market volatility, and rapid technological change. These conditions created both opportunities and challenges for our business. Throughout the quarter, clients sought our counsel to better manage cost and risk, asking for advice, contextual judgment, and specialized expertise to weather dynamic markets. At the same time, we saw short-term headwinds as conditions in the Middle East caused clients in the region to postpone advisory projects. Unfavorable market movements and uncertainty also weighed in on economically sensitive businesses and led some clients to pause more discretionary spending and delay some decisions. Nonetheless, we continue to see solid traction in the market for our solutions, with our strategic focus on specialization, data and analytics, and smart connections resonating with clients. We remain confident in our long-term outlook and our ability to accelerate performance and drive growth through our investments in our solutions, talent, technology, and data. Notably, our AI-enabled solutions are gaining scale and generating growth as they deliver better outcomes for clients. For example, in HWC, Rewards AI, which applies generative AI to WTW's proprietary data for compensation benchmarking, now serves over 2,500 client users. Our AI assistant expert was named a 2026 Lighthouse Tech Award winner in the category of Practical AI, recognized for delivering measurable efficiency gains and value for HR and benefits teams. And we expect many clients to undertake AI workforce transformation projects that we will deliver with our newly developed WorkView agent, which evaluates the automation potential of all roles across an organization. In risk and broking, following two successful pilots in the second half of 2025, we're implementing an AI-powered operating system across the business. This accelerates the core technology that we've developed in our broking platform and integrates our risk and analytics modeling tools into our service platforms. The result is radically improved insight on risk and an expedited placement process. During the first quarter, we also introduced some elements of NewFront's proven technology to enhance the front end and add more agenda capabilities, substantially reducing the administrative burden on our people and transforming our ability to serve our clients. In claims, we're rolling out our digital global claims platform that builds on our broader CRB strategy. The platform uses AI and advanced analytics to reduce process complexity, shorten claims life cycles, and improve outcomes for clients. It also gives us better insight into claims performance standards across carriers and geographies. These investments use technology to strengthen and scale our human-led judgment, advocacy, and accountability. The same applied innovation mindset also extends to how we're helping clients manage complex and fast-moving risk environments. Recently, our physical risk climate team was recognized for its work with a large semiconductor client, for whom we developed new solutions to help manage climate and infrastructure-related vulnerabilities across multiple geographies. These capabilities enable clients across the technology industry to quantify and prepare for risks that fall outside traditional frameworks. Against that backdrop, we saw several notable client engagements this quarter that demonstrate how WTW is helping clients navigate complexity by combining data and analytics, insight and technology. In health, wealth, and career, a large global employer in the consumer cyclical sector selected WTW for support on a quick burn project to prepare for a divestiture. The client valued our divestiture-in-a-box offering that incorporates pre-packaged solutions with technology-enabled delivery. In another HWC win, the CHRO of a global technology company recognized that HR needed a trusted partner, a partner with deep expertise on work design jobs and skills to help them develop an AI strategy they could execute. Our work and rewards and employee experience teams were engaged to build an end-to-end solution including a talent and skills framework, a transformation roadmap, a process to build newly needed skills, and overall change management strategy. Our subject matter expertise and our AI tools differentiated us. In risk and broking, we're particularly proud of the team who recently won all lines for a global Fortune 100 company in the US, following a multi-stage process that highlighted our analytics expertise and strong global coordination across our specialties. Starting with a comprehensive property and casualty review in the summer of 2025, we delivered actionable insights that established credibility and set us apart in the RFP with our advanced analytics, global connectivity, and technology-enabled service platform. This win underscores the strength of our globally integrated specialty model and our ability to translate analytics into measurable client value and will result in strong revenue growth for us this year. Another recent win by our surety team highlighted our global reach and ability to solve complex specialty placements. We were selected by a leading global supplier of nuclear technology to address the consolidation of a fragmented surety program previously managed by two global brokers. Additionally, we were tasked with structuring and executing a major syndicated surety facility designed to support the client's ambitious $80 billion project pipeline over the next three years, one of the largest non-construction surety syndications currently in the market. Securing this mandate positions CRB Surety as a key strategic partner and provides a robust platform for our continued growth within the nuclear energy sector, where we expect strong growth over the course of 2026. Finally, we secured a significant win in the rapidly growing AI and digital infrastructure industry with one of the leading companies in the construction and operation of advanced data centers. Our team won the entire program from a broker relationship that spanned over 15 years, covering both construction and operations by showcasing our construction specialty and analytics expertise, as well as our ability to advise on complex construction risks in almost every country in the world. Our support for the client extends beyond core services. For instance, we just assisted with a bond required for a project closure in Europe, filling a gap left by their previous storey broker. The client has appointed us on their next three data center projects without a competitive process, and we'll see that work come through in 2026. Innovation also remains a significant driver of our efforts to enhance efficiency. WeDo, our enterprise delivery organization, continues to support our businesses in deploying automation and AI and optimizing utilization of our global delivery centers. As AI adoption rises across the company, we're seeing increasing benefits to efficiency and productivity. For example, last July, we introduced our Call Note Assist tool. Since then, it's been used to summarize over 1.6 million calls in our outsourcing contact center, enabling a 33% reduction in post-call wrap-up time. Doc LM, our proprietary AI document ingestion tool, extracts and organizes key terms such as exposures and insurance clauses, significantly streamlining compliance and portfolio oversight. And our CRB affinity team has used AI to achieve a 90% reduction in endorsement processing time. With that, I want to step back and underline what we're seeing and expect to see in our business regarding AI. Clients are not choosing between human expertise or technology. They expect both. They want trusted advice and a trusted partner to help them navigate the complex environment, adding analytical rigor and sound judgment to the decisions they're facing. And they want applications and platforms that give them real-time access to data and insights, regardless of how difficult it might have been to obtain the information or how much effort it would have taken to analyze it previously. This is why I believe WTW will lead and benefit from AI solutions in the long term. Our position in the industry and our structural advantages give us the opportunity to use AI to drive growth and efficiencies in ways that newcomers, carriers, and clients cannot or do not have the incentive to pursue. Let me explain. First, our services are complex, highly specialized, and mission-critical for nearly all companies. Clients value working with trusted advisors like WTW because our guidance comes with real accountability. In making complex or important decisions, expert judgment matters, and the potential upside of bypassing experienced accountable advice is not worth the downside of getting it wrong and dealing with the repercussions. Second, AI enhances efficiency but does not enhance trust and alignment. AI streamlines workflows and lowers cost to serve, but it does not deliver the judgment, adequacy, and accountability that both clients and carriers expect. AI can inform decisions, but it does not negotiate with carriers, advocate on behalf of insurance in the claims process, or provide bespoke advice to help navigate through complexity. For buyers of our offerings, the risk of foregoing that value proposition getting wrong is considerable. Third, our structural advantages are hard to replicate. Our aggregated proprietary data, deep relationships, and global scale, which have been developed over time, create meaningful benefits for clients and carriers. In HWC, we have decades of longitudinal workforce data, actuarial IP, and deeply embedded outsourcing platforms. In R&B, we have proprietary data which encompasses risk and placement insights across carriers and geographies. Finally, AI itself is increasing demand. In addition to growing client interest in more sophisticated analytics and advice, including guidance about AI workforce transformation, AI is creating new AI related risks and amplifying existing risks in cyber and other markets, fueling demand for novel insurance solutions that we believe we are well positioned to create and implement. To give you deeper insight into this, I'd like our new Chief AI Officer, Spike Lipkin, to share some of his thoughts. As you know, with our focus on portfolio optimization, WTW recently acquired NewFront, a San Francisco-based startup which grew into the leading AI-powered broking platform. Spike co-founded NewFront and led its efforts to disrupt insurance broking, and as WTW's chief AI officer, he'll help shape how AI advances WTW's long-term strategy and integrate NewFront's technology with WTW's to create a true end-to-end digital ecosystem. His experience building NewFront and planning and executing this integration gives him a unique and valuable perspective. With that, I'll turn it over to Spike.

Thanks, Carl. I'm excited to be here because AI is clearly central to W2W's strategy, and it will become a key driver of value for both our clients and our business. Gordon Wintraub and I started NewFront in 2017 because we believe that advances in technology would create new risks around cyber, IP liability, property, which would expand broker revenues and at the same time reduce the cost of delivering services. While all of this has happened, there's even more opportunity ahead, and we still believe that insurance brokers, especially those with scale and data like us at WTW, will be massive beneficiaries of AI advances. At Newfront, we built infrastructure to take advantage of these developments to provide better client and colleague experiences. The results are clear. Colleagues who use our technology sell about 50% more than those who do not. And our client attrition rate drops by half when clients use our tools compared to those who do not. However, over eight years, we found that with highly advanced technology, global reach, expertise, and access to proprietary data are still tremendously important. AI is no substitute for WTW's meaningful influence with carriers to drive better client outcomes. Moreover, AI is most effective when supplied with vast amounts of proprietary data, which WTW has. Our conclusion was obvious. Lasting advantage would accrue to scaled platforms that combine data and specialized expertise with AI to supercharge the entire system. After evaluating a range of options, we made a deliberate decision to move to WTW, where we saw the foundation for that advantage in two ways. First, its position as an industry leader in data and analytics, and second, its operational agility that comes from being a genuinely integrated enterprise rather than a collection of siloed businesses. This level of integration is uncommon in the industry and critical for success. As models become widely available, much of the business impact will depend on employee adoption and re-skilling. This is much more straightforward in an organization with shared processes, consistent standards, and aligned incentives than one fragmented across independent business units. Moreover, the data lives in one place rather than across a series of disconnected platforms. We believe this gives WTW a significant competitive advantage, which is why we chose to join them and build an end-to-end AI-powered broking platform together. We're now working at PACE to integrate NewFront's technology into WTW's environment to create this intelligence platform that unlocks significant growth and efficiency opportunities for the entire enterprise. Our goal is to allow colleagues to spend more time on client-facing work and less time on administrative tasks. We also believe having the leading technology will attract talent to WTW, especially those in search of novel digital tools to deliver better client outcomes. An AI-fluent workforce is a massive competitive advantage in this industry, which has historically lagged in technology adoption. Our detailed roadmap to integrate NuFront's existing tech into WTW's business starts with North America. Several tools are implementation-ready, and we are embedding engineers with professional teams and seeing early successes. For example, several AI tools are being utilized by client-facing teams, like Coverage Gap Analysis, our AI-powered coverage review tool. We are also quickly rolling out Navigator, which centralizes clients' insurance programs in one platform, and Partner Management, our AI-driven third-party insurance compliance tool. And our Newfront professional teams are already benefiting from the W2W platform with several large notable wins that combine Newfront tech with W2W resources to bring on clients we never could have won on a standalone basis. For example, a multi-state mid-size healthcare provider selected us as their health and benefits broker because of W2W's deep healthcare expertise and cost management approach combined with Newfront's technology capabilities. In another case, a rapidly growing energy client selected us because of NuFront's technology combined with W2W's energy expertise. Additionally, in CRB, the combined expertise of NuFront and the W2W team enabled us to retain the PNC placement for a high-profile AI developer. As we shared when the acquisition was announced, we expect momentum to build over time as we build the intelligence layer for insurance. We are keenly focused on implementation, as addressing this component is more than half the challenge. This is the most exciting moment our tech team has ever experienced, and we are committed to preserving our early lead. We expect the next few years to be some of the most exciting and impactful in our business, and we're thrilled to be advancing our work at WTW.

Thank you, Spike. We're excited to have you on board as part of the leadership team, and we look forward to sharing more on AI development and our integration progress on future calls. Before I hand it off to Andrew, I want to reiterate our competence in our strategy and the investments we're making in AI, talent, innovation, and data to both protect and expand our competitive position over time and deliver value to clients and shareholders. Despite the short-term headwinds that impacted the first quarter, we remain confident in our ability to deliver on our near-term goals of bid single-digit growth, continued margin expansion, and free cash flow margin improvement. With that, I'll turn the call over to Andrew.

Thanks, Carl. Good morning, and thanks for joining us today. In the first quarter, we delivered organic revenue growth of 3%. Adjusted operating margin was 22.3%, expanding 70 basis points over the prior year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $3.72, cents, representing a 19% increase compared to Q1 2025. While revenue came in toward the low end of our plan, our first quarter results reflect our commitment to strong operational execution and the benefits of our investments in talent and technology. Our strategy is resonating despite ongoing macro uncertainty, and we remain focused on executing our strategic objectives and creating long-term shareholder value. Turning to our segment results and starting with health, wealth, and career, organic revenue increased 3% in the first quarter, with growth driven primarily by continued strength in health and wealth, partially offset by softer results in career and benefits delivery and outsourcing. We remain confident in HWC's full-year outlook for mid-single-digit growth and continued margin expansion, even with the headwinds from economic uncertainty and geopolitical pressure impacting parts of career. Health was our strongest performer this quarter, with revenue up 6%. All geographies delivered growth led by strong performances across international and Europe, supported by solid client retention and the strength of new business wins. Overall, health continues to demonstrate the strength of its recurring revenue base. We continue to expect high single-digit growth in health for 2026 based on demand driven by high health care costs and the important role of specialty solutions. Wealth revenue grew 4% in the first quarter, driven by higher levels of retirement work across all regions alongside growth in our investments business. In retirement, growth was supported by continued demand for project work, recurring actuarial services, and the expansion of our global life site offerings. Investments grew with solid new business wins and increased OCIO activity.

Overall, wealth performance continues to reflect the durability of its recurring and regulation-driven revenue base.

Wealth is off to a good start this year, and we continue to expect growth at the high end of the low single-digit range in 2026. Our career business declined 3% this quarter, primarily due to geopolitical disruption in the Middle East, causing a significant pullback on projects. this change in activity did not impact our other hwc businesses so regional exposure is very modest at the overall hwc level the career business also experienced strong growth in europe and asia while seeing somewhat slower pipeline conversion in north america we expect momentum to improve later in the year based on our expanding pipeline and outlook for our compensation benchmarking practice. We also expect to gain traction with our new AI workforce transformation offering, which is resonating well with clients as they focus on redesigning work and jobs to reflect the transformative impact of AI. As Carl mentioned, this offering features our work view agent to support business leaders in thinking about the automation potential for different roles. Even so, with the ongoing uncertainty related to the Middle East conflict, we believe it is prudent to expand our guidance range to low to mid-single-digit growth for the full year for career. Benefits delivery and outsourcing declined 1% this quarter. The results reflected an expected contraction in the individual marketplace business, partially offset by continued growth in outsourcing. Individual marketplace performance was impacted by lower commissions in the first quarter, consistent with our expected pacing for the year. Outsourcing delivered modest growth, supported by expanded projects and administration engagements. Overall, BD&O performance tracked in line with our expectations. As a reminder, our individual marketplace business generates about 80% of its revenue in the fourth quarter due to the timing of the Medicare enrollment period. Given that seasonality and our expectations for 2026, we anticipate that the full year growth from individual marketplace will be driven by fourth quarter activity. We continue to expect low single-digit growth for BD&O for the full year based on our unchanged expectations for individual marketplace and our pipeline of new client implementations in our outsourcing business. HWC's operating margin in the first quarter was 27.3%, an increase of 60 basis points compared to the prior year, or 40 basis points excluding the tailwind from foreign currency, adding to our track record of consistently delivering margin expansion, which we will continue to build on in 2026. Moving on to our risk and broking segment, first quarter revenue growth was 2% compared to 7% growth achieved in Q1 of last year. As anticipated, Q1 was a softer growth quarter for CRB, reflecting an exceptionally strong prior year comparable and the timing of new business activity. Against that backdrop, CRB delivered organic growth of 2% for the quarter, or 1% excluding the impact of book of business settlement activity and interest income against the strong 9% growth CRB achieved in the prior year quarter. While we had expected a slower start to the year, Q1 actuals tracked toward the lower end of our planning range. This was primarily driven by a miss in our new business target, some of which timed into future quarters. To a lesser extent, we also saw a more competitive pricing environment. We had strong client retention and solid growth across specialty lines with notable contributions from our surety, credit risk solutions, and M&A specialties. Construction also delivered a solid quarter, supported by continued momentum in data center programs. It's worth emphasizing that one quarter, particularly Q1, does not define the trajectory of the year for CRB. Given the strength and visibility of our pipeline, we remain confident in our ability to drive profitable growth for the full year. However, reflecting the slower start to the year, we are narrowing our full year outlook for CRB organic growth to mid single digits. This does not change our long term expectations for this business. The specialization strategy continues to resonate, positioning us to help clients manage geopolitical volatility while disciplined investments in revenue-producing talent continues to support sustainable organic growth. Moving on to our insurance consulting and technology business, revenue is up 5%, marking its strongest performance in several quarters, driven by increased technology sales. Demand for ICT software solutions remains healthy, particularly for Radar, our leading decision engine, where AI-enabled capabilities are increasingly being used to deliver sharper pricing, underwriting, and claims insights. Consulting activity remains subdued in some areas, and we do not expect a material pickup in the near term. This was a great start to the year from our ICT team, and we continue to expect low to mid-single-digit growth for ICT for the full year. Turning back to R&B's results overall, again, given the slower start to the year, we are narrowing our full-year 2026 growth outlook for R&B to mid-single digits. R&B's operating margin was 22.6% in the first quarter, compared to 22% in Q1 2025, an improvement of 60 basis points on a reported basis. Excluding the net tailwind from foreign currency, book of business activity, and acquisitions, margin improved approximately 10 basis points. We remain committed to delivering 100 basis points of average annual adjusted operating margin expansion over the next two years. Now let me turn to our enterprise-level results. For the first quarter, adjusted operating margin was 22.3%, representing approximately 70 basis points of expansion versus the prior year, or 30 basis points, excluding the tailwind from foreign currency. This performance reflects strong operating discipline and expense management and the continued benefits from actions we've taken to simplify and streamline the organization. As we flagged on last quarter's call, we saw a meaningful impact from foreign exchange this quarter, resulting in a tailwind to adjusted EPS of 25 cents for the first quarter. Based on our current outlook and spot rates, we expect foreign exchange will create an incremental 10-cent tailwind in the remaining three quarters, resulting in a $0.35 tailwind for the full year. Our U.S. GAAP tax rate for the quarter was 18.6% versus 21.5% in the prior year. Our adjusted tax rate for the quarter was 20.3% compared to 22.7% for the first quarter of 2025. We continue to expect our 26 tax rate to be relatively consistent with that of 2025. Free cash flow was negative $65 million for the first quarter of 2026, an improvement of $21 million from the prior year. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by operating margin expansion and the abatement of transformation program cash outflows, partially offset by increased transaction and integration expenses. For the full year, we continue to expect to expand our free cash flow margin. During the quarter, we returned $388 million to our shareholders via share repurchases of $300 million and dividends of $88 million. From a capital allocation standpoint, our priorities remain unchanged. We continue to expect share repurchases of at least $1 billion, subject to market conditions and potential capital allocation to organic and inorganic investment opportunities. Share repurchases continue to be our primary form of capital return, alongside dividends, as we maintain flexibility to invest in the business and pursue disciplined, strategic M&A aligned with our long-term priorities. With that, let's open it up for Q&A.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. To ask a question at this time, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, simply press star 11 again. As a reminder, in the consideration of time, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Now, first question coming from the line of Elise Grinspan with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. My first question is on R&B and the organic revenue slowdown you saw in the quarter. I think you guys said new business was below plan. Can you just expand on that? And, you know, was that the full driver of, I guess, the organic deceleration? And within new business, did you see, was it more pronounced the slowdown in the U.S., in Europe? And I guess is your expectation, you know, why are you convinced, I guess, that this is just a one-quarter slowdown and growth, you know, will get better over the balance of the year?

Good morning, Gleason. Thanks for the question. So, you know, just to put the context here right, R&B had 2% organic growth in the quarter. That was on top of 7% we delivered in the prior year quarter. As we anticipated, Q1 was a softer growth quarter for CRB, delivering 2% organic growth, 1% excluding both book of business and interest income. That does reflect exceptionally strong incomparable 9% with the same exclusions in Q1 of 25, as well as the timing of new business activity. As we indicated, the current quarter results track to the low end of our planning range. However, we do think our specialization strategy and the investments we're making in talent, data, and technology are continuing to resonate in the marketplace with driving sustainable growth. And of course, ITT's 5% we think was a strong result as the technology pipeline converged and improved. Lucy, anything that comment in terms of this quarter and the outlook?

Yeah sure and thankfully why don't I start by giving you a little bit of context then give some detail about the result itself and make some comments about the rest of the year. Our expectation for CRB was that Q1 would be our lowest growth quarter of the year. This expectation was largely due to the strength of the comparable, which Carl mentioned. In Q1 last year, CRB had 9% growth ex-interest income book of business activities with particularly strong new business generation. We did, though, come in at the low end of our own planning range. The majority of the below plan result is due to a miss in our new business target, some of which will time into future quarters and our early view is that we return to normalized growth in April. While we don't disclose organic growth rates at the geography level, I can say that North America had the best performance and International trailed the other geographies in the quarter for a couple of reasons. First, International had the toughest comparable because of an outstanding performance in Q125. And second, it's the region that has the most new business exposure to geopolitical headwinds. To a lesser extent, our growth was also impacted by an even more competitive pricing environment than we expected, particularly in the large and complex segment. Although we have returned to normalized growth in April. Given the slower start to the year and those ongoing price headwinds, we are taking a prudent approach and narrowing our full-year outlook to mid-single digits. In terms of the rest of the year, we continue to see healthy client activity, deliverable pipelines in all of our specialties, and And of course, we expect increased contributions from our new hires as we progress through the year. We have exciting momentum coming out of the integration of the new front team in North America. New Front brings not only exciting tech developments, which will benefit the production capacity of all the WTW people, but I should also mention the incredibly talented people with important specialist capabilities who we feel very privileged to welcome to WTW. In terms of strategic hiring, we're continuing with this successful strategy with our strategic hires from previous years continuing to make healthy contributions and we had a significant cohort of new investment hires start in Q1 giving them the full year to ramp. And finally we've returned to normalized growth patterns in April. I would call out, I guess, specific area of uncertainty, not unique to us, of course, being the Middle East, where we expect decision-making to be slower and projects to be delayed. As I mentioned, we did see continued deterioration in pricing during Q1, so considering the performance and the rating environment, which we did call out as a potential risk to our path the high single-digit in Q4. We think the narrowed outlook of mid-single-digit for CRB is prudent, given the evolving macro backdrop, and we continue to expect low to mid-single-digit growth for ICT for the full year. Overall, we remain well positioned despite the volatile environment, and we're confident we can deliver mid-single-digit organic growth in RMB in 26, along with 100 basis points of average annual margin expansion over the next two years.

Thanks. And then my follow-up question maybe is, you know, just picking up where you ended on the margin, right? So I think at the prepared remarks, you guys said X currency book of business activity and acquisitions at the margin within R&B expanded by 10 basis points. So obviously, right, that is below the 100 basis point average. Can you just help us think through, I guess, what you'll vet in the quarter and, you know, why you would expect, you know, the drivers of margin improvement picking up throughout the course of 26?

Yeah, sure. Sure, Elise. We did expand margin by 60 basis points on a reported basis. And as you noted, excluding the net tailwind from foreign currency book of business activity and acquisitions, margin improved about 10 basis points. Looking ahead, we expect our continued investments in technology to provide a strong platform for ongoing operating leverage and efficiency across the business to help achieve the 100 basis points of margin expansion on average over the next two years within the segment. Maybe Lucy, do you want to to provide a little bit more color there? Yeah, sure.

Thanks. Elise, I think our Q1 margin result reflects our ability to lower operating margins, meet our margin expansion commitments, even in a low growth quarter. We are maintaining focus on disciplined expense management and continuing investments in enhancing efficiency, while also taking into account a cost base that includes staffing and capabilities built for the stronger growth expected throughout the remainder of the year. As Carl highlighted in his remarks, we do and our investments in AI and automation continue to be key drivers of that margin expansion across the whole business. One of the specific examples he mentioned was that our affinity team has achieved a 90 percent reduction in endorsement processing time using AI enhancements. Advancements like these really improve the client experience and make work more efficient for our people. And more meaningfully, we are doing some very important work on our own operating systems. During the last half of 2025, we launched two pilots, one in North America and one in the UK. During Q1, we added some significant new front enhancements and has now started the global launch of our AI-powered operating system neurons. As Carl mentioned, this accelerates the core technology that we developed in our working platform and integrates our risk and analytics modeling tools into our service platform. This enables our users to do all their work from a single screen with no data entry. Just one small example to put it into perspective a little bit. Today, in our existing systems, each single piece of data is entered between 3 and 12 times. And of course, each single client transaction will have many hundreds of data points, most entered manually. This will have a sizable impact on speed and accuracy. Neuron has been launched in cyber in North America and property in the UK, and we have launches in other geographies and other lines planned over the next three quarters. This will radically improve the service we give to our clients, as well as be a meaningful driver in our ability to deliver operating leverage in our mid-single-digit revenue growth. Operating leverage and efficiency gains will remain the primary drivers of our expected 100 basis points of average annual margin expansion, and we remain confident in our ability to deliver on this plan. Thank you.

And our next question coming from the line of, Rob Cox with Goldman Sachs, Alanis Nelvin.

Yeah, just thanks. First question, just staying with the focus on R&B for a moment, is it fair to characterize the R&B growth as a situation where you're expecting some level of this Middle East uncertainty to persist in growth rates in coming quarters. And to follow up on your question or on your comment on pricing for large and complex business, I was thinking your revenue model would be less susceptible to pricing changes in that segment, but maybe that's not the case in international. Any comments would be helpful.

Yeah, sure. Thanks. Just in terms of the first part of the question about the Middle East, to date, in risk and road game, we've seen puts and takes with an overall neutral impact, some delays to projects, but offset by some higher activity in some of our impacted specialty lines. Just calling it out as a developing situation that we're monitoring. In terms of the pricing question, yes, we do have in our specialty businesses, we do have some that are susceptible to a large and complex pricing, and that's been reflected in what we saw during the first quarter.

Okay, thank you. And then I'll just pivot to HWC. I wanted to ask on the outlook there, given the headwinds you guys called out in that business, what makes you confident that you can deliver the mid-single-digit growth given the uncertainty there? Is it just that the Middle East disruption is focused on the career business and you don't think that will blend or bleed into other businesses?

Yeah. Thanks, Rob. So, I mean, at the segment level, HWC delivered 3% organic revenue growth for the quarter, and that was driven by primarily strength in health and wealth, and that's despite headwinds from economic uncertainty and geopolitical pressure. Career, as you cited, right declined 3%. That was lower levels of project activity. Clients deferred some discretionary work, and the situation in the Middle East and some broader economic caution we can see have effect. Demand for advisory services slowed in North America, partially offset by some regulatory driven work and strengthened in some selected national markets. We do expect incremental conversion increases and regional headwinds moderate later in the year. Julie, you want to talk a little bit more about your seeing career and in this segment?

Yeah, sure, Carl. Thanks for the question, Rob. Look, we did face these headwinds in career. on the Middle East geopolitical situation and the caution around discretionary spending. And we do view those as temporary. We know they're not going to go away immediately, but we expect them to have less of an impact later in the year. Then I think it's important to highlight a few things that did not impact Q1 that we expect to impact the rest of the year positively in surveys. And that's a leading indicator for benchmark revenue growth in Asia. Healthy pipelines for support on things like EU pay transparency, M&A transactions, and total rewards. And as we think about timing of that pipeline, those pipeline conversions, we expect revenue in these areas to contribute to growth over the rest of the year. And then third, emerging demand, and it's related to the impact of AI on an organization's work and workforce and total rewards. We're building a really strong pipeline for new offerings in this area. Transformations, as mentioned in their prepared remarks, is a terrific solution. It features our WorkView agent, which evaluates the automation potential for all roles across an organization in this area in the latter part of the year. So when we combine those pods of the year, our outlook for career is to reach below to mid-single digit. It does not change our mid-single-digit guidance for the segment overall. Because we've got health and organic growth, that was driven by solid client retention, wins in global benefits management, and local brokerage appointment pipeline there. And momentum is building for specialty solutions and cost management throughout the year, and single-digit organic growth for the full year, and look at total growth. in our retirement businesses. We have new actuarial clients, new live site clients. We're doing more technical support for things like data cleanup, de-risking, workforce management activity. And alongside that, we introduced last year, new business wins and trends in well businesses, and we think that will result in organic growth at the high end of the low single-digit range. And then, again, here we've got total growth where we'll benefit from the close of our Flowstone deal in early April and the expected reminder, as Andrew pointed out earlier, that individual marketplace in this business generates approximately for the year in DDNO we're holding to our guidance of low single digit growth and overall very confident in our outlook for HWC to deliver mid-single digit growth.

Thank you. Our next question coming from the lineup. Andrew Anderson with Jeffrey's. Hey, good morning.

I wanted to go back to HWC, and you had called out stronger international health growth. Are you seeing any regional divergence in demand trends more broadly or pricing or even any changes in client practices around compensation approaches?

No, I mean, we're seeing strong demand for our services for health across the globe, particularly strong in international markets. do recognize that our North America business is a mix of consulting and brokerage and the consulting arrangements are typically less sensitive to health care inflation so there is that nuance.

Yeah and Carl I just might add that we do see health care inflation projected to increase across all regions at an average of more than 10% and that's due to higher volume and higher costs, and we don't expect to see that decelerating in the near term. And as you said, the cost increases are going to most directly impact the revenue for fully insured clients, and for other clients, it is driving greater demand for our technical advisory services.

Thanks. And then maybe, Spike, how should we think about some of the tangible impacts of AI? Where do you expect it to show up first, whether it be margin expansion or revenue growth? And maybe what are some milestones we can look out for as you scale into this new role and strategy?

Yeah, so let me describe Spike's new role for everybody, and then I'll let him gladly comment on that. So, you know, after leading key pieces of the ongoing integration of New Front WTW, Spike's going to serve as our chief AI officer, according to me, and working to set our overall enterprise AI strategy. Spike's co-founder, Gordon Wintrup, is going to be our head of AI acceleration, and he'll focus on our accelerating enterprise-wide adoption of AI capabilities. The track record here speaks for itself. Spike and Gordon helped build the industry's largest AI card-broking platform and delivering that smart, fast, and efficient client experience through the combination of deep specialty expertise and cutting-edge technology. And Spike's new role, he'll help define our enterprise ambition for AI and further embed it into WTW's overall strategy, operating model, and culture. He'll also help shape how we use AI to advance our competitive positioning and create long-term value for our clients and shareholders. And now he'll tell you how.

Great. So maybe I'll – thank you. And maybe I'll start just talking a bit about the vision and then some of the near-term integration focus. So the vision is very straightforward. W2W becomes the intelligence layer for insurance.

This strategy is durable for W2W for three reasons.

First, an R&B asset built on almost 200 years of climate change. W2W, especially in meta-engineers, but practically we're running two purpose-built agentic products like coverage gap analysis, navigator, and partner management, and we're driving AI adoption across AI fluency.

And it's Andrew, maybe I'll just comment on the margin, to the margin expansion we delivered in 2025 and the forward impact. In fact, in the near term, the upside is what burry center productivity, contact center efficiency term. The larger opportunity is scaling new funds adoption across long term. The most durable sanitary data and integrated operating model and an AI fluent node is technology and capability.

Thank you. And our next question coming from the lineup, David Motematon with Evercore SI. Your line is now open.

Hey, thanks. I wanted to stick with the organic growth in R&B, the 1% growth this quarter on a core basis. Could you just talk about some of that new business that, Lucy, I think you said it was timing related. Could you just size how much of a drag that was in the quarter? and is that conversion of some of those deals, is that what's coming back a little bit here in April?

Thanks, David. Well, I'm not going to size it for you exactly, but I will reiterate that there was a particularly strong performance in international in Q125, 25, and that was where we saw some of our challenges, but that what we're seeing in April gives us confidence that we're good for mid-single digits for the full year.

Got it. And I'm assuming that means, you know, I think you had said April is normalized growth. So sorry to be super short term here, but, you know, I was a little surprised at just how much it decelerated this quarter. I mean, is normalized growth, is it back at 5% this quarter? I mean, or in April, I guess. And, you know, what gives you the confidence that that's going to continue?

Understand your surprise. And it is mid-single digit or better in April. Sorry, and I'm sorry to be short-term.

Thank you. And our next question coming from the lineup, Andrew Slickerman with TD Kyle and Yelan Snellfin.

Yeah, hey, thanks for taking my questions. I guess, you know, do I have one or two questions? I don't know. It seems like we're getting to the end here, But I'll ask, number one, an executive at one of the very largest carriers suggested that broker commissions are excessive and that they will come down in time. And I'm very curious as to what you think about that and how it will play out for Willis Towers. And then just in case I don't get to squeak it in, you've given great detail on HWC and R&D and why you think things are going to get better. When you say mid-single digit for both, it feels like it might be skewed toward the lower end of mid-single digit. Am I thinking about that wrong?

So thanks for the question or questions, Andrew. Let me address the first one. Carriers talking about broker commissions is not a new thing, and I guess the way we look at it is, you know, brokerage pricing is historically reflected risk transfer complexity and advisory value, and not just cost plus economics. In fact, if you look at commission levels over time, you'll see steady levels in spite of significant technology advances as it's based on the value intermediaries bring to both clients and carriers. And so, you know, I look at it this way. You know, while AI can reduce manual effort, it doesn't reduce the compliance burden of distribution, doesn't change the incentive structure between carriers, brokers, and clients, and it doesn't diminish the value of brokers. And this dynamic is not new to our industry. Technology has consistently driven efficiency gains and insurance broker advisory services over many decades. And through each successive innovation, WTW successfully adapted and continue to deliver organic growth and margin of expansion over time. And AI represents just the next one.

Thank you. And our next question coming from the lineup, Brian Merritt with UBS. He'll end this now open.

Yeah, thanks. Two ones here. First, just on RV growth one more time here. I'm wondering if you maybe could frame how much your business is actually exposed to this Middle East conflict. And if it continues here going forward, you know, for the remainder of the year, you know, what does that mean for your organic growth? Could you have to guide down here again?

Yeah, thanks. In terms of how much we could be exposed, I would just say it's one of our smallest geographies. And so while we think it's important to call it out, we don't expect it to have a major impact on our results.

Very helpful. Thanks, Lucy. And then second one, maybe for Andrew, given your stock is down about 26%, 27% year to date now, maybe you can frame kind of your capacity for share buyback this year. I know you said it's going to be greater than a billion, but maybe frame kind of how big could it potentially be given up as your stock has been hit pretty hard?

Yeah, so we've said a billion or greater for the year. That guidance hasn't changed. You know, we've looked at our cash position, you know, regularly, lean in from an absolute dollar perspective and also from a timing perspective when it's appropriate.

Thank you. And our next question coming from the lineup, Mark Markin with Baird Yelena is now open.

Good afternoon. My question was answered. I was curious as well about the size of the Middle East since you ended up talking about that quite a bit up front. So interesting that it's relatively small. Can you talk a little bit about how you're thinking about longer term just the impact of AI on the margin improvement, particularly on the RMB side? Like, you've already been talking about the 100 basis points of improvement, but how longer term, how much more efficient could we end up becoming, and how significant could that be? Thank you.

Yeah, sure. We're not necessarily going to quantify the impact over the longer term. I called out earlier a couple of places where we think it helps both from the cost side and the revenue side, you know, as it relates to the 100 basis points of margin expansion within R&B. you know, technology advances and process efficiencies have always been a core part of that. I think AI is just playing a larger part in that than maybe we had anticipated when we sort of framed that at the end of 2024 at our time.

Thank you. And that is all the time we have for our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Carl Haskell's final remarks.

So thank you all again for joining us. I appreciate the hard work of our WTW colleagues globally who have helped us navigate the start of the year. And thank you to our shareholders as well for their continued support of our efforts. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.