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Manulife has been named the number one life insurance company for AI maturity overall for the second consecutive year in the 2026 Evident AI Index for Insurance, is now the top insurer in Canada and number one in the AI Leadership category and ranks third overall. These accolades highlight Manulife’s ability to scale AI-driven innovation across its global footprint, delivering measurable business value and impact, and accelerating its strategic priority to operate as an AI-powered organization.
“We’re proud to be named the number one life insurer for AI maturity for the second year in a row—and are now a top three company overall. This is a powerful validation of Manulife’s refreshed enterprise strategy, and our commitment to being an AI-powered organization globally,” said Phil Witherington, President and CEO, Manulife. “As we continue to scale, we are focused on disciplined execution and responsible deployment. We expect to generate more than $1 billion[1] of enterprise value by 2027, with $300 million achieved as of year-end 2025, reinforcing that our approach is not only improving productivity and efficiency, but also delivering real impact for our customers, colleagues and shareholders.”
According to Evident, Manulife has disclosed the deployment of more use cases than any other insurer across the Index. This deployment over the past year reflects a continuous focus on prioritizing AI solutions that deliver measurable outcomes, including the Manulife Automated Underwriting Decision Engine (MAUDE) in Canada, which processes more than half of eligible individual life insurance applications automatically, delivering decisions in as little as two minutes for qualified applicants; John Hancock’s Quick Quote, which simplifies and accelerates the insurance quoting experience; a suite of AI-enabled tools within Manulife Wealth & Asset Management designed to enhance investment insights and decision-making; and AI-driven capabilities across Asia, from digital underwriting and claims management, AI Assistants for distribution partners, and more personalized customer experiences .
The Evident AI Index for Insurance assesses AI maturity across 30 of the most prominent insurance companies in North America and Europe, measuring progress across four key categories: Talent, Innovation, Leadership, and Transparency. This year’s results reflect a significantly higher bar across the industry, as insurers transition from capability building to scaled deployment and optimization.
Manulife ranked first in the Leadership pillar and with strong scores in Transparency, with Evident citing the company’s consistent executive engagement, industry influence, and transparent approach.
“This recognition reflects the depth of AI integration across Manulife and the deliberate way we are scaling its impact,” said Jodie Wallis, Global Chief AI Officer, Manulife. “Our focus is on practical, responsible applications of AI that deliver measurable outcomes, underpinned by strong governance that is increasingly automated and embedded into how AI is developed and used. Being recognized among industry leaders in AI maturity reflects the sustained progress our teams are making as we evolve from adoption to consistent, enterprise-wide execution.”
“Manulife ranks first amongst life insurers in the Evident AI Index for Insurance for the second year running, reflecting its ability to build AI capability around the workflows that matter most,” said Alexandra Mousavizadeh, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Evident. “Manulife shows a deliberate approach towards building AI capacity, growing the AI talent pool by 41% year-on-year, embedding a scalable architecture, and using AI to deliver improvements in access, conversation and long-term customer relationships. Being amongst a very small number of insurers to publish both realized and projected returns at the company level demonstrates Manulife’s robust internal methodologies.”
These results demonstrate the consistency and scale with which Manulife is putting AI into practice across the enterprise. Guided by its refreshed Enterprise Strategy and Responsible AI Principles, the company is embedding AI into day-to-day work to simplify processes, improve decision making and deliver better outcomes for customers, advisors and colleagues.
To learn more about Manulife’s approach to artificial intelligence, visit manulife.com/AI.
The full 2026 Evident AI Insurance Index report and methodology are available at evidentinsights.com.
[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.
