Toronto, Canada – Manulife has launched a proprietary enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) platform to help teams develop, deploy, and manage AI solutions across global operations under a common governance and security framework.
The platform provides a shared environment for AI development, allowing teams to reuse approved solutions and scale them across markets while accommodating the requirements of different businesses and jurisdictions.
The launch marks a shift from individual AI applications towards a unified approach to enterprise AI deployment, guided by Manulife’s Responsible AI Principles.
The company expects to generate US$1 billion in cumulative enterprise AI value by 2027 through the integration of AI across its businesses, platforms and workflows. It reported US$300 million in value as of the end of 2025, including run-rate expense reductions, revenue growth from AI-enabled workflows, fraud reduction and increased capacity to support business growth.
“We have already demonstrated that AI can deliver meaningful impact across Manulife, from improving experiences for customers, agents, and colleagues to driving measurable business value,” said Phil Witherington, President and CEO of Manulife.
“The platform positions us to move beyond individual solutions to a shared enterprise capability that encourages and enables teams around the world to innovate, collaborate, and scale AI responsibly. This is a critical next step toward our strategic priority to become a truly AI-powered organisation,” Witherington continued.
The platform is designed to accelerate AI development by allowing teams to reuse use cases that have already undergone review and approval. This approach is intended to reduce development time while incorporating security, risk management and governance controls into deployment processes.
“AI is moving from isolated use cases to capabilities that will reshape how financial services are delivered,” said Jodie Wallis, Global Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at Manulife.
“Our AI Platform gives us the foundation to take proven ideas, scale them across our franchise, and create better experiences for customers, advisors and colleagues. The opportunity is not just to work faster, it is to remove friction, solve problems in new ways, and unlock value at a scale that was not previously possible,” Wallis continued.
AI applications across business operations
Several AI-powered tools are being integrated into the platform to support employee productivity and streamline business processes.
In Singapore, the Sales Agent tool helps sales teams retrieve information, answer questions and prepare for customer conversations. The system provides real-time AI assistance intended to improve efficiency and support customer interactions.
Manulife’s Intelligent Document Processing service automates document reading and information extraction for teams across the company. By reducing manual data entry and processing time, the service aims to improve accuracy and enable faster decision-making.
In the United States, Quick Quote uses AI to simplify preliminary life insurance assessments. The solution automates key steps and provides faster access to preliminary underwriting information, reducing manual work for employees and advisers.
Governance and responsible AI deployment
Manulife said its AI strategy maintains human accountability while supporting decision-making and innovation. Solutions developed through the platform must follow the company’s Responsible AI Principles, which are intended to support safe, ethical and transparent AI use.
“AI is creating new opportunities for innovation across Manulife, and our focus is on helping teams bring those ideas to life in a secure and responsible way,” said Shamus Weiland, Chief Technology & Operations Officer at Manulife.
“Our AI platform creates a strong, centralised foundation that empowers our developers and data scientists to build once and scale globally, while maintaining the highest standards of security, governance, and responsible AI,” Weiland continued.
The platform also supports the use of models sized according to specific tasks, an approach intended to manage computing costs and energy consumption while enabling scalable AI development.
Manulife has also been recognised for its AI maturity in the life insurance sector. The company said it ranked first among life insurers for AI maturity for two consecutive years in an industry index, and was also ranked first in the AI Leadership category and third overall.
