It is among 11 financial institutions working with IBF and MAS to pilot workforce development initiatives alongside adoption of artificial intelligence
[SINGAPORE] Manulife Singapore on Friday (Dec 5) launched its artificial intelligence (AI) centre of excellence, with plans to expand its AI capabilities by growing its talent pool.
Manulife said that it will increase the number of people working on its AI talent base over the next three years, with the hiring to be primarily focused on data science, AI governance and AI engineering.
Through the AI hub, Manulife seeks to continue its development of AI tools to enhance its main operations such as underwriting and customer service.
At the same time, it also wants to bridge the skills gap within the financial sector.
One way will be through providing internship and mentorship opportunities with Singapore’s institutes of higher learning to expose students to real-world AI applications in financial services.
But beyond just recruiting, the AI hub will also seek to upskill its existing workforce to take on more technical roles.
Manulife was selected as one of 11 financial institutions to work with the Institute of Banking and Finance and the Monetary Authority of Singapore to pilot workforce development initiatives alongside AI adoption.
Speaking at the launch, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Culture, Community and Youth and Sustainability and the Environment Goh Hanyan said: “Manulife has also embarked on a career conversion programme administered by IBF to redesign the role of retail underwriters and reskill them to leverage AI tools that enhance risk analysis and decision-making.”
The company said that its centre of excellence will also tap into Singapore’s research institutions and industry associations to “grow AI talent and uplift the broader financial services sector”.
Its push to develop AI talents aligns with its operational goal of developing AI solutions.
In Singapore, more than 75 per cent of Manulife’s employees have already adopted AI for their work. In addition, more than 200,000 prompts were generated in Singapore this year, said Benoit Meslet, chief executive officer of Manulife Singapore, in his address at the event held at Manulife Tower.
Manulife also showcased several proprietary tools, including ChatMFC – an in-house large language model that aims to boost employee productivity.
Similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the model allows employees to upload documents for translation and summarisation without the risk of a data leak.
Another product showcased was an interactive visualisation tool that provides users with near real-time insights. It is built on customer analytics records which is a structured layer of curated customer data.
Manulife said that the AI hub will develop use cases across different functions within the company, such as underwriting, operations and customer experience.
“AI is going to help our team respond faster to customers, provide more relevant advice to them and also free up time so that our people can serve our customers with a human touch,” said Meslet.
But amid the increasing application of AI within Manulife, the company emphasised the importance of responsible AI usage.
“Our enterprise AI strategy centres on responsible innovation, governance, and impact,” said Mark Czajkowski, chief AI officer at Manulife Asia.
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