Manulife Expands Partnership with Microsoft to Accelerate Enterprise AI Governance and Innovation

• Five–year agreement advances Manulife's strategic priority to become an AI-powered organization
• Manulife will adopt Microsoft's Frontier Suite and deploy Microsoft Agent 365 to drive AI solutions at enterprise scale
• Manulife will expand deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot to more than 30,000 employees

TORONTO, ON and REDMOND, Wash., July 22, 2026 /CNW/ -- 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-driven 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 strengthen Manulife's enterprise-wide approach to AI governance, observability, and risk management. Manulife has AI-powered agent solutions in production across the organization, with more in the pipeline.

"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:

• Revenue 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 billionⁱ 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 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.

Caution regarding forward-looking statements

This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbour" provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to Manulife's use of its digital capabilities, the benefits of its partnership with Microsoft and the expected benefits it expects to realize from AI and its partnership with Microsoft. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include but are not limited to general business and economic conditions; changes in laws and regulations with respect to the use of AI-enabled tools; our ability to execute our digital plans and to deploy future digital use cases; our ability to adapt products and services to the changing market; our ability to attract and retain key employees and our ability to protect our intellectual property and exposure to claims of infringement from others. Additional information about material risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations may be found in our most recent annual and interim reports and elsewhere in our filings with Canadian and U.S. securities regulators.

The forward-looking statements in this document are, unless otherwise indicated, stated as of the date hereof. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Anchored in our ambition to be the number one choice for customers, we operate as Manulife across Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, providing financial advice, insurance and health solutions for individuals, groups and businesses. Through Manulife Wealth & Asset Management, we offer global investment solutions, financial advice, and retirement plan services to individuals, institutions, and retirement plan members worldwide. At the end of 2025, we had more than 37,000 employees, over 106,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 37 million customers with operations across 25 markets globally. We trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and Philippine stock exchanges, and under '945' on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Not all offerings are available in all jurisdictions. For additional information, please visit manulife.com.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) creates platforms and tools powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers. The technology company is committed to making AI available broadly and doing so responsibly, with a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Media contact

Manulife:

Emily English

647-544-2800

Emily_English@manulife.ca

Microsoft:

Derek Kirk

416-558-0092

derekkirk@microsoft.com 

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SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation

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