Manulife opened the tools to every colleague and left the lessons running

A login that sits with a specialist group has a familiar year attached to it. A central team runs the pilots. A policy, a course and a business case are promised to everyone else. Colleagues spend that year picturing what the tool might do to the job, because they have not been allowed to find out.

David McDonald, chief people officer for Asia and global head of people technology and operations at Manulife, says the company put the tools in colleagues' hands from the start. Microsoft Copilot and ChatMFC, an internal generative chat assistant, were made available across the company, with training, support and guardrails built as people began to use them. That decision, he says, did more for colleague confidence than anything leaders said about it. Every employee should be able to learn, experiment and help shape how the tools make the role they already hold more effective.

The skills work is split by the job. A programme for users, leaders and practitioners is role-based, so an underwriter and a software developer each learn what their own work requires. He does not name the file, the system or the check a manager would use afterwards.

AI Champions, strong users who share what works, are meant to carry the habit across Manulife's markets. Workshops, enablement programmes and communities of practice run through the year, and AI is a standing item in team meetings and senior leadership meetings, where leaders practise with the tools and discuss them. Internal campaigns keep asking colleagues to try a new use and share what they find. A standing item becomes a habit when someone brings a use from this week and a question they were willing to ask.

Starting points are far apart. Some colleagues are already expert users, others have barely started, and some are reluctant to admit they are not using the tools. Psychological safety, he says, means it does not matter where someone starts. No question is too basic, it is fine to challenge what the tools produce and to learn from mistakes, and everyone gets the same chance.

Generative capabilities are available to 100 percent of the workforce, and more than 82 percent of colleagues globally were actively using the tools as of September 2026. Manulife Asia won Best Overall AI Adoption: Life/Health at the 2026 Asia Consumer Insurance Awards, and Evident has ranked Manulife the top life insurer for AI maturity for two years running. A login is not yet a decision a customer would notice.

Everyone will use these tools whether their employer provides them or not. Microsoft and LinkedIn's 2024 Work Trend Index surveyed 31,000 people in 31 countries and found that 78 percent of AI users were bringing their own tools to work, and only 39 percent had received training from their employer. Approved tools are the more responsible course, he says, when people can apply the guardrails on their own. The Responsible AI Principles require human oversight and additional review for higher-risk uses, and colleagues are trained to recognise where human judgement is essential.

He does not name the exercise, the time a champion is given or the decision a leader makes differently after the standing item. He says the tools scale when colleagues stop being recipients of the change and become participants in creating it. Participation still needs a task the underwriter and the developer do not share.

1. Name the task for each job. An underwriter and a software developer each need a file or a system they already own.

2. Put a use from this week on the meeting that already has AI as a standing item, and leave room for a question.

3. Hold the September figure to a decision someone else can see. More than 82 percent were using the tools. Active use still needs a change in the work.

4. Put the guardrail in that same meeting. Human oversight on higher-risk uses has to be a line a champion can point to.

A psychological safety session is a practical place to take one team that already has the login, name the question people are still afraid to ask and write down what a champion will bring to the next meeting.

Sources:

• IT Brief Asia, 3 November 2026