Manulife bets on partnerships to scale AI across insurance operations
Manulife is moving beyond early AI pilots to the next phase: building enterprise systems that run at scale. The Canada-based insurer announced a partnership with Akka, an agentic AI platform, to develop AI agents that can handle underwriting, claims, customer service and investment research across its global operations.
Jodie Wallis, global chief AI officer at Manulife, said the partnership reflects a broader industry shift. "The need to accelerate speed of deployments while maintaining or improving risk posture is a common challenge," she said. Strategic partnerships can help insurers bridge that gap without rebuilding infrastructure from scratch.
What the partnership does
Manulife plans to use Akka's technology to build AI agents - software that understands tasks, analyzes information and takes action. These agents will support employees across the company, helping them work faster and more accurately.
The platform, currently in beta testing, is designed to reduce development time and lower operational costs. Every agent built on it includes governance controls and safeguards for compliance in regulated markets.
Wallis emphasized that the platform embeds Manulife's Responsible AI principles from design through deployment. "Responsible AI is embedded into every phase of our AI lifecycle," she said. "This partnership aligns directly with our Responsible AI Principles and reinforces our commitment to building AI systems that are explainable, resilient and safe."
Why Akka matters
Manulife chose Akka for its strength in orchestration, system reliability and operational performance. In insurance, where mission-critical workflows demand consistency, those capabilities matter.
"Akka provides a durable, highly available runtime that strengthens the platform's security, reliability and performance as AI becomes embedded in mission-critical workflows," Wallis said. The platform also enables a consistent developer experience across global markets, reducing friction when teams work in parallel.
The financial target
Manulife expects this partnership to help it reach over $1 billion in AI-driven gains by 2027. The company has announced similar strategic partnerships in recent years, including work with Adaptive ML on reinforcement learning optimization.
The goal is to build an enterprise capability to "build, reuse and govern AI at scale," Wallis said, avoiding repeated development cycles. Work from local teams feeds back into shared systems that others can reuse.
What this signals
Manulife's approach suggests that insurance companies scaling AI will increasingly rely on specialized partners rather than building everything internally. The trend reflects a shift from one-off AI projects to integrated systems that run across the organization.
For insurers still evaluating AI adoption, the partnership demonstrates how to address common concerns around safety, governance and compliance. Manulife's track record - it ranked among the top for AI maturity in the Evident AI Index for Insurance - suggests the approach works.
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