“Akka illustrates how enterprises can build and operate agentic systems with the speed, predictability, and governance required in highly regulated environments.”
Jodie Wallis Global CAIO, Manulife
Executive Summary:
- Manulife selected Akka as platform on which to build and operate agentic AI
- Akka provides secure and scalable foundation to support high volume of business applications
- Manulife expects AI to generate $1 billion+ of enterprise value by 2027, with roughly one-fifth expected to come from improved efficiency.
March 10, 2026, Manulife announced that Akka has been selected as its latest partner supporting the development of its enterprise agentic AI platform. By bringing Akka’s durable and highly available runtime into the ecosystem, Manulife will strengthen the platform’s security, reliability, and performance as it embeds AI into critical workflows and expands adoption across the organization.
In June 2025, Manulife was named the #1 life insurance company for AI maturity in the inaugural Evident AI Index for Insurance, reinforcing the company’s commitment to innovation and customer-centric solutions.
“Our insurance and investment businesses are built on trust, and that same principle guides our approach to AI,” said Jodie Wallis, Global Chief AI Officer for Manulife. “As we explore technologies that can help us scale reliable, compliant and resilient AI systems, solutions like Akka illustrate how enterprises can build and operate agentic systems with the speed, predictability, and governance required in highly regulated environments. Their focus on orchestration, safety, operational SLAs, and system reliability reflects exactly the kind of rigor that supports responsible AI and consistent customer value.”
Manulife’s enterprise AI platform, now in beta testing, provides a secure, integrated foundation for building and deploying AI agents – intelligent systems that understand tasks, help make decisions, and take action to support customers and colleagues. The platform streamlines development, reduces operational costs, and enables high volume, business critical AI solutions, all while embedding strong governance, safeguards, and Responsible AI practices.
“Manulife demonstrates the rare understanding of what it really takes to deliver agentic AI on a global scale.”
Tyler Jewell CEO, Akka
“Partnering with a leader like Manulife is an honor for us, and it’s a testament to our 15 years of enterprise scale and regulated industry experience,” said Tyler Jewell, CEO of Akka. “The Manulife team demonstrates the rare understanding of what it really takes to deliver agentic AI on a global scale. Without consistent engineering practices that address a complex and continually changing set of environment factors, AI systems, which are inherently random, will not be trusted to deliver business outcomes.”
Manulife's partnership with Akka reinforces its commitment to Responsible AI and sustainability as outlined in its publicly available Responsible AI Principles.
By usinging Akka, Manulife will be able to:
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Prioritize customer, colleague, and organizational safety through sound delivery and governance processes.
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Design energy-efficient AI solutions that require less infrastructure to run and maintain
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Build AI solutions that are explainable and reliable, while maintaining the appropriate human accountability for decision making.
“Akka provides a secure, scalable software foundation to support high volumes of business applications to accelerate meaningful value creation across our franchise.”
Shamus Weiland Global CIO, Manulife
“Manulife is embedding AI across nearly every part of our business while equipping our colleagues with the capabilities to design, operate, and scale solutions,” said Shamus Weiland, Global Chief Information Officer at Manulife. "Akka provides a secure, scalable software foundation to support high volumes of business applications to accelerate meaningful value creation across our franchise. This partnership is rooted in our Responsible AI Principles, with a strong focus on governance, human oversight, and safety, as we advance toward becoming an AI-powered organization.”
Manulife has been actively investing in and scaling AI capabilities since 2016. In the past three years, the firm has significantly increased the value enabled through advanced analytics and AI by expanding its AI solutions portfolio and increasing efficiency through data and AI platform investments, all driven by the company’s responsible AI framework. In December 2025, Manulife announced that Adaptive ML would provide the reinforcement-learning-powered engine for finetuning and optimizing models within its enterprise AI platform. Manulife expects AI to generate $1 billion+ of enterprise value by 2027, with roughly one-fifth expected to come from improved efficiency.
GlobeNewswire release
Editorial Contact
Nichols Communications for Akka
Jay Nichols
+1 408 772 1551
jay@nicholscomm.com
