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Beneva and Gore Mutual to merge, strengthening mutual insurance’s role in Canada

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QUEBEC CITY, CAMBRIDGE, ON, Jan. 21, 2025 /CNW/ – Beneva—Canada’s largest mutual insurer—and Gore Mutual—one of the oldest property and casualty mutual insurers in Canada —are announcing their intention to combine their businesses to drive future growth. This significant transaction will bring together two well-established, financially strong, trusted brands, reinforcing the meaningful role of mutuals in the Canadian insurance industry. 

Beneva and Gore Mutual will merge under the Beneva brand, which will strengthen their highly diversified, purpose-driven and financially sound businesses – giving both brokers and Canadian consumers an even stronger and more resilient option as a property and casualty insurer.

Together, the combined operations will have over 6,100 employees and 3.8 million members and customers. With close to $8 billion of total premium and $27 billion of assets, the merger will consolidate Beneva’s ranking as the seventh largest insurer in Canada, by total premium. Upon combination with Gore Mutual, Beneva will become the 10th largest property and casualty insurer in Canada and continue to be the third largest property and casualty insurer in Quebec. 

Beneva and Gore Mutual will continue to invest in information technology, improve customer experience and enhance their property and casualty products to better meet the needs of members, customers and brokers. Joining forces will also result in new employment and professional development opportunities and strengthen a top employer in Quebec, Cambridge and the Greater Toronto Area.

Operating as a standalone subsidiary under the Beneva brand will allow Gore Mutual’s more than 180-year heritage to live on with a commitment to maintaining their important historic connection to Cambridge and safeguarding its legacy as Canada’s oldest mutual property and casualty insurer.  The members of Gore Mutual will join Beneva members as full members of the merged entity.

As part of this transaction, Gore Mutual will combine its operations with Unica Insurance, a Beneva subsidiary and a niche personal and commercial insurer based in Mississauga Ontario, and operate as a standalone subsidiary. Once merged, the complementary operations will create a larger group with great ambitions for growth across Canada.  

There are still steps to complete before the merger can be finalized in 2026, including obtaining the approvals from the mutual members of each organization, the Competition Bureau, the required authorities and the adoption of private bills by the Senate of Canada and the Quebec National Assembly. Therefore, for the time being, there is no change in the activities of the two organizations as they remain competitors.  

Quotes 

“With this merger, we are strengthening Beneva’s position as the largest leading Canadian insurer with a mutual model, seizing a unique opportunity to ensure that mutuals remain a driving force in the Canadian insurance industry. A Beneva-Gore Mutual merger makes business sense and is the right move for our members, employees, and our communities, as the values are aligned and cultures are highly compatible, thanks to both companies’ commitment to the mutual model. This merger will enable us to accelerate our growth across Canada, and better diversify our insurance portfolio.”

Jean-François Chalifoux, President and CEO of Beneva 

“By joining forces, we will be an even more prominent, competitive player in Canada’s insurance industry. This will enable us to accelerate our growth and foster the long-term future of our organizations with combined scale, diversification, and access to capital. Beneva recognizes and respects our important legacy and role in the Cambridge, Ontario community and the combined entity will remain deeply committed to contributing to the local area, as well as a top employer in the region.”

 Andy Taylor, President and CEO of Gore Mutual 

About Us  

Beneva  

Created by the coming together of La Capitale and SSQ Insurance, Beneva is the largest insurance mutual in Canada with more than 3.5 million members and customers. Beneva employs over 5,500 dedicated employees: people looking out for people. Its human approach is rooted in mutualist values that are shared by its employees. With $25.2 billion in assets, Beneva positions itself as a major player in the insurance and financial services industry. Its head office is located in Quebec City. For more information, please visit beneva.ca.

Gore Mutual 

Built on a foundation of financial strength for more than 180 years, Gore Mutual Insurance Company is one of the oldest property and casualty mutual insurers in Canada. With offices in Cambridge, Toronto and Vancouver, Gore Mutual is a Canadian mutual company offering competitive insurance products through trusted broker partners. Every decision and investment made is anchored in the long-term benefits to customers, members and communities. For more information, please visit goremutual.ca.

SOURCE Beneva

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JAMS Launches AI for Enterprise Job Scheduling: JAX and JAMS MCP, on the Model You Choose

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A new AI agent and an open-standard connector let IT teams query, diagnose, and manage automation in plain language, on the model they choose, with operational data staying inside their own network

LONDON, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — JAMS Software, an orchestration solution for scheduled and event-driven automation, today announced the general availability of two AI capabilities for enterprise job scheduling: JAX, an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client, and JAMS MCP, a connector built on the open Model Context Protocol standard that brings JAMS into external AI coding tools. Both capabilities ship at no additional cost as part of JAMS Web.

Automation environments grow faster than the teams that run them. Jobs multiply across SQL Server, Azure Data Factory, Airflow, SAP, JDE, and Banner, and when one fails, finding the root cause often means searching several consoles at once, frequently outside business hours. At the same time, IT leaders carry pressure to adopt AI while staying accountable for where operational data goes. JAX and JAMS MCP close both gaps together.

Full details on how JAX and JAMS MCP work, including the control model behind every action, are available at jamsscheduler.com/product/ai.

JAX is an AI agent that runs inside the JAMS Web Client. It finds jobs, troubleshoots failures, and answers how-to questions in plain language, with each response grounded in the JAMS user guide and checked against a built-in glossary. JAX acts only when a user asks it to. Reads flow freely, and every write action pauses for the user’s explicit approval before it runs. JAX does not learn between sessions, and conversations are not retained on the server.

JAMS MCP is a connector, built on the open Model Context Protocol standard, that brings JAMS into the AI tools engineering teams already use, including Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Codex. Users query jobs, investigate failures, and manage runs in plain language without leaving their tool.

Both capabilities run inside the customer’s own network and act as the signed-in user, with that user’s exact JAMS permissions. There is no elevated AI account: whatever a user cannot do in the JAMS interface, JAX and JAMS MCP cannot do on that user’s behalf. Every JAX and MCP operation is recorded in its own dedicated log, and changes made through the JAMS API land in the JAMS audit trail like any other change. Customers choose their own AI model, whether a commercial provider such as OpenAI or Anthropic or a model running entirely on their own hardware, and JAMS never trains on customer data. In the current release, neither feature edits or deletes a job, folder, schedule, or agent definition. For teams that must keep operational data within a defined boundary, JAX runs on a local model entirely inside the customer’s own network, so nothing leaves at all.

“Adopting AI usually means giving something up, most often visibility into where your data goes,” said Pete Hegland, Chief Executive Officer of JAMS Software. “We built JAX and JAMS MCP so that trade does not have to happen. Every action runs as the signed-in user, every change waits for approval, and the model itself can run entirely inside your own network.”

“IT teams across the United Kingdom and EMEA tell us the same thing: they want the benefit of AI without losing sight of where their data goes,” said Greg McLaughlin, Account Executive for EMEA at JAMS Software. “JAX and JAMS MCP let them keep operational data inside their own network and still get answers in plain language. That combination is what makes this practical for the teams I work with.”

JAX and JAMS MCP are available now to all JAMS Web customers across the United Kingdom and EMEA, with no separate licence, SKU, or additional cost. AI-assisted creation of new jobs and workflows from a plain-language description is on the roadmap for a future release, gated by the same approvals and permissions as every other action.

Learn how JAX and JAMS MCP work at https://jamsscheduler.com/product/ai.

Fast facts

JAX is an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client for job scheduling and workflow automation.JAMS MCP is a connector built on the open Model Context Protocol standard, for Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Codex.Both act as the signed-in user, with that user’s exact JAMS permissions, and there is no elevated AI account.Customers choose the AI model, including a local model that runs entirely inside their own network.JAMS never trains on customer data.Both are available now at no additional cost as part of JAMS Web.

About JAMS Software

Founded in 1987, JAMS Software is an orchestration solution that helps IT teams centralize, automate, and manage scheduled and event-driven jobs across complex, hybrid environments. Over 850 customers rely on JAMS to run their automated workloads. JAMS Software, LLC is headquartered at 108 Patriot Drive, Suite A, Middletown, DE 19709.

Media Contact
Bobby Schmidt, Vice President of Marketing
press@jamssoftware.com
800.261.4267

 

 

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/jams-launches-ai-for-enterprise-job-scheduling-jax-and-jams-mcp-on-the-model-you-choose-302833908.html

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Video: CNPC offers green chemical answer

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BEIJING, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A news report from chinadaily.com.cn:

Located on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Tarim 1.2 MTA Phase II Ethylene Project and its supporting green and low-carbon demonstration facility of PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Company, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation, are offering a new example of China’s low-carbon industrial transformation.

Watch the video to discover how CNPC is exploring a cleaner and more circular future for the industry.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/video-cnpc-offers-green-chemical-answer-302834036.html

SOURCE chinadaily.com.cn

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Shanghai Electric showcases embodied intelligence robot matrix and AI-native smart factory solutions at WAIC 2026

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Featuring humanoid robots with 41 degrees of freedom, pipe‑inspection robots with ±1mm positioning accuracy, and 51 industrial‑grade AI agents

SHANGHAI, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Operations in high-end equipment manufacturing often involve confined spaces, complex objects, and fine manipulation tasks that demand sustained and stable precision. At the recent 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance (WAIC 2026), Shanghai Electric (SEHK: 02727, SSE: 601727) showcased its comprehensive portfolio of embodied intelligence solutions tailored to a range of industrial scenarios.

Themed “AI for All: Smart Squad, Shining Without Limits,” Shanghai Electric highlighted its capabilities across embodied AI robots, robot core components, and AI-native smart factory solutions, demonstrating end-to-end capabilities spanning complete robot systems, critical parts, industrial software, and smart factory architecture.

“The true value of embodied intelligence lies in understanding real industrial tasks: combining the strength, precision, and stability of machines with human experience and judgment to drive a genuine paradigm of ‘machine-assisted, human-machine collaboration,'” said Wang Chunlei, deputy general manager of the Robotics Business Unit at Shanghai Electric Automation Group.

Shanghai Electric’s robotics portfolio covers five key industrial scenarios: connector insertion, electrical operations, flexible sorting, intelligent assembly, and pipe processing. Highlights include:

“SUYUAN” bipedal humanoid robot: With 41 degrees of freedom for enhanced mobility, it is equipped with a multimodal visual sensing system on the head and torso, along with a dual-battery hot-swap system. It is well-suited for inspection, material handling, and assembly tasks.”TUOYUAN” industrial wheeled humanoid robot: Powered by an embodied intelligence foundation model and force-position hybrid control, it is capable of multi-spec connector insertion, material sorting, and loading/unloading of automotive sheet metal parts.”Mermaid” bionic wheeled humanoid robot: Capable of autonomously identifying buttons, knobs, and air switches, it generates real-time operation paths.Autonomous pipe inner-wall chamfering robot: Designed for confined spaces, it can position and process thousands of hole edges with accuracy within 1 millimeter while transmitting data in real time.

Shanghai Electric also showcased its portfolio of core components ranging from power-output to end effectors. Among them, the planetary roller screw offers more than three times the load capacity of traditional ball screws, while the DexHand dexterous hand is designed to meet diverse gripping and manipulation requirements.

Shanghai Electric launched 51 AI models and agents under its “StarCloud Intelligent Manufacturing” series across three domains: R&D and design, production and manufacturing, and operations and maintenance—covering critical equipment processes such as process optimization and wind power facility maintenance.

These industrial agents are embedded in robotic decision-making systems and the operational logic of AI-native smart factories, transforming industrial expertise into digitized, reusable capabilities. They support production-line scheduling, quality inspection, and predictive maintenance, driving the evolution of manufacturing systems from experience-driven to data-driven operations.

Shanghai Electric also released the “AI-Native Smart Factory Technology White Paper,” proposing an active evolution architecture that enables real‑time, closed‑loop optimization of production data, giving the factory self‑perception, self‑decision, and self‑execution capabilities. Built on First Principles, the AI‑native smart factory vertically integrates process flows, industrial software, agents, and smart equipment to dismantle traditional hierarchies while horizontally bridging data silos. The architecture features three core layers: the AI factory brain as the “control center,” industrial agents and embodied robots as the “execution network,” and the physical twin as the “digital mirror.”

Leveraging its deep industrial expertise and comprehensive solution capabilities, Shanghai Electric will continue to drive the implementation of AI in industrial settings, tackle technical challenges facing embodied intelligence in complex scenarios, accelerate the large‑scale deployment of AI‑native smart factories, and deliver replicable solutions across diverse manufacturing environments.

SOURCE Shanghai Electric

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