Manulife and Microsoft today announced the renewal and expansion of their longstanding
relationship, supporting Manulife’s strategic priority to become an AI-powered organization. As
part of this partnership, Manulife has adopted Microsoft 365 E7 Frontier Suite capabilities to
enable innovation at scale with secure cloud and AI solutions. This includes expanding adoption
of Microsoft 365 Copilot to over 30,000 employees and deploying Microsoft Agent 365—a next-
generation suite that provides a control plane for governing, monitoring, and securing AI agents
at enterprise scale. The five-year agreement supports Manulife’s continued transformation and
responsible scaling of AI-enabled capabilities across its global operations.
“Our partnership with Microsoft is a critical enabler of Manulife’s continued evolution into a truly
AI-powered organization,” said Shamus Weiland, Chief Technology & Operations Officer,
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.”
A secure, governed foundation for enterprise AI
Microsoft is a foundational partner in Manulife’s global enterprise AI platform, currently in pilot,
which will help to enable Manulife’s data scientists and developers to build, deploy and manage
advanced AI and agentic solutions at scale, while adhering to shared standards for quality,
security and cost efficiency. Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Foundry provide critical components
and capabilities ranging from citizen development tools to advanced model fine-tuning and
monitoring, enabling teams to innovate autonomously within a strong governance framework.
Manulife will also deploy Microsoft Agent 365, to serve as a registry for AI agents across the
enterprise, providing a single interface to observe, govern, and manage how AI agents operate.
This capability will help strengthen Manulife’s enterprise-wide approach to AI governance,
observability, and risk management.
“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, 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.”
Examples of AI solutions already enabled by Microsoft technology across the business include:
● Topline growth: The Sales Enablement tool, launched in Singapore and now scaled
across multiple markets, delivers personalized advisor insights using Foundry models,
driving more targeted engagement and improved sales outcomes.
● Underwriting support: Quick Quote, a GenAI based underwriting support tool
launched by John Hancock in the U.S., which helps streamline the preliminary
assessment process for purchasing life insurance.
● Customer experience: Generative AI solutions support over 110 million calls annually
across North America and are expanding into Asia, enhancing speed, accuracy, and
service quality through Azure-based knowledge tools that provide instant, source-backed
answers with confidence scores.
Additionally, Manulife has agentic solutions and AI-powered workflows live in production across
the organization, with more in the pipeline. Agents can help employees quickly access
information, support software development and technology design, and enhance IT operations
by streamlining workflows, identifying risks, and improving productivity across the organization.
Accelerating innovation across the enterprise
Manulife developers across the organization continue to adopt assisted and autonomous AI
capabilities and have increased their productivity by 30 per cent while enabling reinvestment to
support business growth and develop new capabilities to serve our customers. GitHub Copilot
has helped lay a strong foundation for the next phase of Manulife’s AI strategy, by advancing
Manulife’s autonomous development capabilities, supporting faster design, build and release
processes. This includes business-facing solutions such as Manulife’s mortgage renewal
application, which was successfully rebuilt in a matter of weeks.
Beyond engineering teams, Manulife is embedding AI across the organization, equipping
employees with tools aimed at streamlining everyday work, unlocking productivity gains, and
delivering greater value to customers. Manulife expects to generate more than $1 billion 1 of
enterprise value by 2027, with $300 million achieved as of year-end 2025, improving
productivity and efficiency and delivering real impact for customers, colleagues and
shareholders.
“Our longstanding partnership with Manulife has always been grounded in trust, innovation and
a shared commitment to responsible transformation,” said Matt Milton, President, Microsoft
Canada. “We are proud to be Manulife’s trusted partner in the agentic era, helping empower
employees with Microsoft 365 Copilot and scale AI responsibly with the governance and
security of Microsoft Agent 365. We look forward to continuing our work together as Manulife
turns AI into practical value and better outcomes for customers around the world.”
The partnership expansion reinforces Manulife’s position as an industry leader in AI innovation
and underscores its commitment to becoming an AI-driven organization. For two consecutive
years, Manulife was recognized as the number one life insurance company in North America
and Europe for AI maturity in the Evident AI Insurance Index. Continued collaboration with
1 The expected value from our AI initiatives include realized run-rate expense reductions, top-line revenue
uplift from AI-powered workflows, fraud reduction, and growth absorption.
Microsoft helps to ensure Manulife can sustain this leadership by leveraging the latest
advancements in cloud, AI technologies and enterprise AI governance capabilities.
To learn more about Manulife’s AI progress, visit AI @ Manulife.
