Great-West Lifeco Inc. president and CEO, David Harney, doesn’t dream about expansions into new geographies, he says the company is happy where it operates. What excites the company’s leadership, he says, are the productivity gains which can be made, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies. Particularly exciting is the prospect of turning GWL into a “minutes and seconds business.” That is, a business which can respond to its customers in moments, rather than days and weeks when conducting business.
“We love the AI agenda and what it could do for our business,” he told TD Cowen analyst and managing director, Mario Mendonca in a “fireside” chat sponsored by TD Securities. “We still measure a lot of our customer experiences and our turnaround times, sometimes in hours, but sometimes in days. We’d love to be a seconds and minutes business.” He adds that the company talks a lot internally about AI and the opportunities it presents. “If that can turn us into minutes and seconds business, it actually makes us a more human, intuitive business to deal with,” he says.
Throughout the conversation for investors which predominantly focused on the company’s U.S. business (the United States segment makes up 34 per cent of the company’s earnings), Harney also discussed GWL’s expansion plans, its branding focus, and the company’s plans for its shareholders going forward.
New transparency for shareholders
Harney says the company has permission in 2026 to buy back 20 million shares. “The cost of that will obviously depend on the share price during the year. I think the consensus target price at the moment is about $70. So that’s going to be $1.4-billion. That’s very close to the number that we did last year,” he says.
Although the company’s focus seems to be on product, service and brand, the CEO’s comments in passing also suggest the company does not preclude future M&A activity. “We don’t think that reduces our firepower when it comes to M&A,” he says.
The conversation then turned to transparency for the company’s shareholders. Harney says the company has intentionally been trying to get better about its interactions with market participants. “People always saw it as a prudent, well-run business that delivered good earnings. We’ve sharpened the focus and the transparency around capital generation and that stock management of capital,” he says. “We’re continuing to update the supplemental information that goes out with our earnings results.” He adds that the company will also spend more time engaging the investor community going forward, as well.
U.S. lessons
Among the lessons gleaned from running GWL’s U.S. businesses, most of which operate under Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America, he says scale is necessary to grow revenue, to introduce new products and to reduce the company’s cost per participant.
The discussion also focused on workplace investment plan inflows and outflows. The CEO noted that the industry in general can expect two per cent outflow of funds as baby boomers retire and begin transferring their accumulated funds. “That dynamic is going to be there for the next number of years,” he says. The company, however, through scale and its resulting ability to invest in service and efficiency measures, has allowed it to whittle that two per cent drag to one.
“Scale is very important. Price is very important. You have to be efficient. What you’ll see in the market is the top five players are winning market share and all of the other players are struggling to compete,” he says of the company’s U.S. business. “That dynamic is going to continue.”
He adds that larger players will continue to invest to drive down costs per participant. These productivity gains, in turn, are expected to create better pricing. “I think we’ll continue to see a price competitive market and some downward pressure,” he says.
The key to improving rollover rates where people transition out of workplace plans into retirement solutions are helped, thanks to the company’s size, brand awareness and product offering.
“People get a lot of confidence that their employer in the first place has placed that business with Empower,” he says. “It’s all about service delivery. You have to continue to invest in your brand and increase brand awareness. You have to continue to expand out that product set that you have.”
Alternative geographies
In discussing mergers and possible divestitures, the CEO says at the moment the company is not invested in a single product line or geography that it doesn’t want to be in. “Exiting anything isn’t on our agenda. Our full attention is on making all those businesses as good as they can be. We’re not going to look at other geographies.”
Although these are obviously attractive and growing well, he says the company’s belief remains that no matter where it operates, it needs to have a scale position to be successful. “We’re lucky we have scale position in the markets we have. That’s where we’re going to continue to focus.”
Artificial intelligence
Instead, efficiency may be the name of the game. It is hoped that AI will bring the company’s expense ratios down over the coming years. “I think everybody can understand the efficiency gain that’s there,” he says. Fighting disintermediation will be a matter of instead using the AI to improve customer experience and make productivity improvements, alongside a focus on brand and product expansion.
Regarding AI, he calls the technology an amazing area. “We’re putting a huge amount of attention on it,” he says. “We are in a world now where things are going to change a lot. The things we have to do is make sure we secure those productivity increases.” To that end, the company already has AI built into its call centres and operations. He also says the company is doing a lot of infrastructure work to be able to seize the opportunity that agentic AI also presents.
Although AI will also bring out new models, including hybrid AI advice, he says it remains necessary to be open to the changes. “The requirement to be good and to be the best is going to become even more important,” he notes.
He also says branding is another area where the company has increased spending. “This is a journey over many, many, many years,” he says.
Canadian business
The CEO also discussed briefly the company’s Canadian experience. Underlying performance in this segment for the company came in at six per cent in 2025, down slightly from the seven per cent growth reported in 2024. Harney says this remains in line with the company’s published guidance.
