Ella, an interactive digital coach built by Sun Life, is getting smarter and smarter, Jacques Goulet, the insurer’s Canada President says. 

Sun Life’s investment in AI is paying off, Goulet told financial analysts during a conference call following the release of the Q4 2020 financial results.  

“In 2020, we gave clients something like 15 million nudges that led to $700 million of deposits and $1 billion of additional coverage in insurance,” Goulet says. 

This represents a 69 per cent increase in deposits over 2019 and an 83 per cent increase in the amount of additional coverage purchased in 2019, the insurer says. 

“We made client interactions more frictionless, digitally processing 90% of Canadian retail insurance applications, and 79 per cent of retail wealth transactions,” said Dean Connor, the company’s CEO. “Our artificial intelligence and predictive modelling accelerated and improved the individual insurance application process with 71 per cent of policies underwritten without the need for lab tests, an increase of 26 per cent over prior year.”