Great-West Lifeco: AI efforts
Great-West Lifeco's publicly verifiable AI footprint is modest relative to Canadian peers Manulife and Intact — it ranks near the bottom of the Evident benchmark. Its clearest deployment is at Canada Life, which rebuilt its contact centre on AWS. Part of InsureBench's overview of AI in insurance; every figure is sourced.
Where Great-West Lifeco ranks on AI
Great-West Lifeco ranks #27 of 30 in the 2026 Evident AI Index for Insurance — the same position as 2025, and the lowest of the major Canadian life insurers (Manulife #3, Intact top-10).2 Evident flagged that it showed no evidence of AI-training initiatives, unlike peers.2
Its most concrete, sourced deployment is at Canada Life, which rebuilt its contact centre on AWS — an AI chatbot, call summarisation and automated authentication — reporting roughly $7.5M in H1 2025 savings.3
global insurers
The AI build-out
A focused contact-centre deployment plus a strategic venture commitment to AI.
Canada Life AI contact centre
Canada Life rebuilds its contact centre on AWS (Connect, Bedrock, Lex), reporting ~$7.5M in first-half savings.3
Evident AI Index (2025)
Great-West Lifeco ranks #27 of 30 in the inaugural index.4
AWS re:Invent case
Canada Life presents its Amazon Connect / Bedrock contact-centre transformation at AWS re:Invent.5
Sagard AI Fund
Power Corp, Great-West Lifeco and IGM commit US$150M to the Sagard AI Fund for AI exposure across financial services.1
Evident AI Index (2026)
Great-West Lifeco ranks #27 of 30 again.2
Inside the programme
Operating-company AI at Canada Life, plus a group venture bet on AI.
Canada Life contact centre
Amazon Connect, Bedrock and Lex power an AI chatbot, call summarisation and automated authentication.3
Cali
Canada Life's AI chatbot deflects roughly 1,900 calls a week at an 83% containment rate.3
Sagard AI Fund
A joint Power-group commitment to a fund backing AI companies across financial services.1
AI-assisted advice
Management describes AI already assisting advisors and gathering information in call centres.6
"The Power group expects AI to meaningfully enhance decision-making, operational efficiency, and the delivery of financial advice and solutions over time."
Great-West Lifeco / Power group, Sagard AI Fund announcement — May 20261An earlier-stage adopter, investing to catch up
Great-West Lifeco is candidly behind its Canadian peers on AI maturity — strongest at the Canada Life operating level — and is using a venture commitment (the Sagard AI Fund) to buy early exposure while it builds internal capability, with a stated focus on "thoughtful and responsible integration of AI."1
For an earlier-stage adopter especially, whether the models are right is the question an insurance AI benchmark answers.
- Strongest at the Canada Life operating-company level
- US$150M Sagard AI Fund for early AI exposure
- Stated "thoughtful and responsible" AI integration
- Earlier-stage maturity (Evident #27, two years running)
Why this matters for benchmarking
Great-West is starting with AI in service and advice. Even at an earlier stage, whether the models are right is what matters — which is what InsureBench measures. See the methodology.
Sources
- Great-West Lifeco — Joint investment in the Sagard AI Fund (May 20 2026). greatwestlifeco.com
- Investment Executive — Three Canadian insurers ranked among top AI innovators (Great-West #27). investmentexecutive.com
- ZenML LLMOps DB — Canada Life contact-centre AI transformation (AWS re:Invent BIZ216). zenml.io
- Fintech.ca — Canadian insurers in the 2025 Evident index (Jun 19 2025). fintech.ca
- AWS — AWS re:Invent 2025: reimagining customer experience with Amazon Connect. aws.amazon.com
- GuruFocus — Great-West Lifeco Q4 2025 earnings call highlights. gurufocus.com