By Kasturi Datta |
Insurance and investment provider Manulife has renewed and expanded its partnership with Microsoft to support its strategic priority to become an AI-powered organisation.
Manulife will expand its adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot to over 30,000 employees, and deploy Microsoft Agent 365 to govern, monitor and secure AI agents.
“Our partnership with Microsoft is a critical enabler of Manulife’s continued evolution into a truly AI-driven organisation,” said Shamus Weiland, chief technology and operations officer at Manulife. “Adopting the Microsoft Frontier Suite represents the next phase of that transformation, giving us the trusted foundation to advance AI across our global operations with confidence. It also provides the scale, security, stability and intelligence we need to accelerate innovation and embed AI responsibly across the franchise.”
Microsoft is a foundational partner in Manulife’s global enterprise AI platform, currently in its pilot stage, which will enable data scientists and developers to build, deploy and manage AI and agentic solutions. Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Foundry provide capabilities such as citizen development tools and advanced model fine-tuning and monitoring, enabling teams to innovate autonomously within a strong governance framework.
“As AI becomes more deeply embedded across our business, responsible innovation has to be built into how we operate – not treated as a separate layer of oversight,” said Jodie Wallis, global chief AI officer at Manulife. “For Manulife, that means giving our teams the clarity, controls and confidence to use AI in ways that are secure, transparent and aligned to our Responsible AI Principles. By strengthening how we govern and monitor AI across the enterprise, we can move with greater speed and discipline while continuing to earn the trust of our customers, colleagues and communities.”
The insurer has already created a sales enablement tool to deliver personalised advisor insights, an AI-based ‘Quick Quote’ underwriting support tool, and AI solutions to support its customer service operations.
Manulife expects to generate more than $1 billion of enterprise value from its AI initiatives by 2027.