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Manulife Named #1 Life Insurer for AI Maturity for Second Consecutive Year by Evident

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C$ unless otherwise stated                                       TSX/NYSE/PSE: MFC     SEHK: 945

Named top insurer in Canada, first in the AI Leadership category, and ranked third overall – 
underscoring Manulife’s strategic priority to be an AI-powered organization

TORONTO and BOSTON and HONG KONG, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Manulife has been named the number one life insurance company for AI maturity overall for the second consecutive year in the 2026 Evident AI Index for Insurance, is now the top insurer in Canada and number one in the AI Leadership category and ranks third overall. These accolades highlight Manulife’s ability to scale AI-driven innovation across its global footprint, delivering measurable business value and impact, and accelerating its strategic priority to operate as an AI-powered organization.

“We’re proud to be named the number one life insurer for AI maturity for the second year in a row – and are now a top three company overall. This is a powerful validation of Manulife’s refreshed enterprise strategy, and our commitment to being an AI-powered organization globally,” said Phil Witherington, President and CEO, Manulife. “As we continue to scale, we are focused on disciplined execution and responsible deployment. We expect to generate more than $1 billion1 of enterprise value by 2027, with $300 million achieved as of year-end 2025, reinforcing that our approach is not only improving productivity and efficiency, but also delivering real impact for our customers, colleagues and shareholders.”

According to Evident, Manulife has disclosed the deployment of more use cases than any other insurer across the Index. This deployment over the past year reflects a continuous focus on prioritizing AI solutions that deliver measurable outcomes, including the Manulife Automated Underwriting Decision Engine (MAUDE) in Canada, which processes more than half of eligible individual life insurance applications automatically, delivering decisions in as little as two minutes for qualified applicants; John Hancock’s Quick Quote, which simplifies and accelerates the insurance quoting experience; a suite of AI-enabled tools within Manulife Wealth & Asset Management designed to enhance investment insights and decision-making; and AI-driven capabilities across Asia, from digital underwriting and claims management, AI Assistants for distribution partners, and more personalized customer experiences .

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1 The expected value from our AI initiatives include realized run-rate expense reductions, top-line revenue uplift from AI-powered workflows, fraud reduction, and growth absorption.

The Evident AI Index for Insurance assesses AI maturity across 30 of the most prominent insurance companies in North America and Europe, measuring progress across four key categories: Talent, Innovation, Leadership, and Transparency. This year’s results reflect a significantly higher bar across the industry, as insurers transition from capability building to scaled deployment and optimization.

Manulife ranked first in the Leadership pillar and with strong scores in Transparency, with Evident citing the company’s consistent executive engagement, industry influence, and transparent approach.

“This recognition reflects the depth of AI integration across Manulife and the deliberate way we are scaling its impact,” said Jodie Wallis, Global Chief AI Officer, Manulife. “Our focus is on practical, responsible applications of AI that deliver measurable outcomes, underpinned by strong governance that is increasingly automated and embedded into how AI is developed and used. Being recognized among industry leaders in AI maturity reflects the sustained progress our teams are making as we evolve from adoption to consistent, enterprise-wide execution.”

“Manulife ranks first amongst life insurers in the Evident AI Index for Insurance for the second year running, reflecting its ability to build AI capability around the workflows that matter most,” said Alexandra Mousavizadeh, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Evident. “Manulife shows a deliberate approach towards building AI capacity, growing the AI talent pool by 41% year-on-year, embedding a scalable architecture, and using AI to deliver improvements in access, conversation and long-term customer relationships. Being amongst a very small number of insurers to publish both realized and projected returns at the company level demonstrates Manulife’s robust internal methodologies.”

These results demonstrate the consistency and scale with which Manulife is putting AI into practice across the enterprise. Guided by its refreshed Enterprise Strategy and Responsible AI Principles, the company is embedding AI into day-to-day work to simplify processes, improve decision making and deliver better outcomes for customers, advisors and colleagues.

To learn more about Manulife’s approach to artificial intelligence, visit manulife.com/AI. The full 2026 Evident AI Insurance Index report and methodology are available at evidentinsights.com.

Caution regarding forward-looking statements

This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbour” provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to Manulife’s use of its digital capabilities and the expected benefits it expects to realize from AI. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include but are not limited to general business and economic conditions; changes in laws and regulations with respect to the use of AI-enabled tools; our ability to execute our digital plans and to deploy future digital use cases; our ability to adapt products and services to the changing market; our ability to attract and retain key employees and our ability to protect our intellectual property and exposure to claims of infringement from others. Additional information about material risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations may be found in our most recent annual and interim reports and elsewhere in our filings with Canadian and U.S. securities regulators.

The forward-looking statements in this document are, unless otherwise indicated, stated as of the date hereof. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Anchored in our ambition to be the number one choice for customers, we operate as Manulife across Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, providing financial advice, insurance and health solutions for individuals, groups and businesses. Through Manulife Wealth & Asset Management, we offer global investment solutions, financial advice, and retirement plan services to individuals, institutions, and retirement plan members worldwide. At the end of 2025, we had more than 37,000 employees, over 106,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 37 million customers with operations across 25 markets globally. We trade as ‘MFC’ on the Toronto, New York, and Philippine stock exchanges, and under ‘945’ on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Not all offerings are available in all jurisdictions. For additional information, please visit manulife.com.

Media Contact
Gina Simonis
617-840-4794
GSimonis@Manulife.com 

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Summation Makes AI Analysts Available to Every Business Team

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Put a proactive AI analyst to work in minutes: automating the grind, staying on top of what’s changing, and helping teams make better decisions, fast.

BELLEVUE, Wash., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — AI has made individuals dramatically more capable. But making each person smarter doesn’t automatically make the company run better.

Companies are becoming more complicated. There’s too much happening for any person or team to see the full picture. Summation is AI designed for how a business actually operates.

Starting today, Summation’s AI analyst is available to everyone. After a year deploying Summation inside companies including Fanatics, Lineage, and Grid, any team can now sign up, connect its data, and put an AI analyst to work in minutes.

“Most businesses aren’t short on valuable problems to solve. They’re short on the analytical capacity to solve them,” said Ian Wong, CEO and Co-Founder of Summation. “We built Summation to put an AI analyst on every team and bring the best of AI to the decisions that drive the business.”

The AI Analyst That Stays on Top of the Business
Most AI tools wait for someone to ask the right question. Summation can take responsibility for work that needs to happen whether someone remembers to ask or not.

It can run recurring analytical processes, including reviews, forecasts, and reporting, automatically on your schedule.

Summation can monitor thousands of changes across products, customers, locations, and channels. When something matters, Summation investigates why, shows the evidence, and brings it to the right person.

And it can go beyond analysis into operating decisions. Summation powers applications for planning, pricing, inventory, marketing, and other workflows, helping teams make key decisions and measure what matters.

The result is more capacity to run the business: more questions answered, faster response to change, and better decisions made sooner.

More Than a General-Purpose LLM
Making that work takes more than a great AI model.

Summation learns the context that makes each business different: its data, metrics, definitions, processes, and constraints. Its workflows keep running from one operating cycle to the next, and its work is verified and traceable back to underlying data.

That’s what allows Summation to take responsibility for recurring work rather than simply generate a one-off answer. An output from Summation is a boardroom ready deliverable you can trust.

From Sign-Up to Production
Individuals and teams can sign up, connect their data through more than 1,200 integrations, and delegate their first job in minutes. With Summation Workflows, useful work can then run automatically and deliver itself by email or Slack.

For enterprises, Summation’s deployment team works alongside customers to make the analyst successful. The team identifies high-value responsibilities to delegate, learns how the business actually operates, and does the last-mile work to put AI into production.

The goal isn’t another AI implementation. It’s a working analyst driving a real business outcome.

Available Today
Summation is available in two self-serve plans: Pro at $60 per user per month and Max at $200 per user per month.

Enterprise plans include dedicated deployment support, custom integrations, and advanced governance and controls for organizations putting AI analysts into critical operating workflows.

Summation AI analysts are available today. Put one to work at: www.summation.com/try-summation.

About Summation
Summation builds AI analysts that help companies understand what’s happening, plan what comes next, and make better operating decisions. Its AI analysts work from live business data and shared company context to automate recurring work, proactively monitor performance, investigate problems, and improve plans.

Companies including Fanatics, Lineage, and Grid run recurring analytical and planning work on Summation today.

Summation is backed by Benchmark and Kleiner Perkins and is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.

Media Contact
Trevor Shih
Head of Business Operations
Summation
press@summation.com

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SOURCE Summation Technologies, Inc.

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New North American Survey Reveals Only One in Ten Sustainability Professionals Expect Their Organization’s Ambition to Decrease

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Research from UN Global Compact Networks in Canada, Mexico, and the USA and GlobeScan reveals companies are becoming more selective and strategic as pressure on corporate sustainability commitments grows

TORONTO, Sept. 10, 2026 /CNW/ — Despite mounting economic, political and regulatory pressure on corporate sustainability, ambition among sustainability professionals across North America is proving more resilient than widely assumed. A new tri-national study finds that only 10 percent of respondents expect their organization’s sustainability ambition to decrease, while most expect it to increase, remain stable, or become more targeted.

Leading Through Uncertainty: The Evolving Role of Sustainability Professionals in North America, published by UN Global Compact Networks in Canada, Mexico and the USA, in partnership with GlobeScan, draws on survey responses from corporate sustainability professionals across all three countries, conducted in English, French and Spanish. The research finds that sustainability leadership in North America is evolving, with organizations becoming more selective in where they focus, how they communicate, and demonstrate progress. Other key findings include:

Business value is the defining test for sustainability leadership. 76 percent of respondents identify the ability to connect sustainability to business value as a crucial capability, meaning that industry leaders are expected to translate environmental and social priorities into strategy, operations, and finance.Sustainability is moving closer to core business strategy. 61 percent of respondents say embedding sustainability into strategy and capital allocation should be a priority for sustainability leaders, pointing to a shift toward deeper business integration.The role of sustainability professionals is expanding. Beyond technical expertise, the research also surfaces the growing importance of influencing leadership, working across functions and driving organizational change.

The research is based on a survey of 276 sustainability professionals with responsibility and expertise in corporate sustainability across North America. Conducted in English, French and Spanish, the results are weighted equally across Canada, Mexico and the USA. The full findings were presented at the virtual launch event on September 10, 2026. The complete report is now available to download here.

About UN Global Compact
As a special initiative of the United Nations Secretary-General, the UN Global Compact is a call to companies worldwide to align their operations and strategies with Ten Principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Our vision is clear: to mobilize business to transform sustainability ambition into action at the scale the world demands. With more than 25,000 participants and a presence in over 100 countries through 5 Regional Hubs and more than 70 Country Networks and expansion territories, the UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.

For more information, follow @globalcompact on social media and visit our websites at unglobalcompact.org  | UN Global Compact Network Canada – unglobalcompact.ca | UN Global Compact Network Mexico – pactoglobal.org.mx  | UN Global Compact Network USA – globalcompactusa.org

About GlobeScan
GlobeScan is an insights and advisory firm specializing in trust, sustainability, and engagement. 
We equip clients with insights to navigate shifting societal and stakeholder expectations, crafting evidence-based strategies that reduce risks and create value for their organizations and society.
Established in 1987, we have offices in Cape Town, Dubai, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, London, Paris, San Francisco, São Paulo, Singapore, Tokyo, and Toronto. GlobeScan is a participant of the UN Global Compact and a Certified B Corporation.
Learn more here.

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SOURCE United Nations Global Compact

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OpenSpace Unveils the Next Generation of Its Visual Intelligence Platform at Waypoint 2026

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New Spatial AI, mobile, and progress tracking innovations help construction teams turn trusted reality data into faster, better decisions

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — OpenSpace, the Visual Intelligence Platform for the built world, today unveiled the next generation of its platform at Waypoint 2026, the company’s annual virtual customer event. The new and upcoming capabilities demonstrate how Visual Intelligence is creating a new way to work in construction, moving project teams beyond document-centric workflows toward decisions grounded in visual, real-world data.

In recent years, OpenSpace has become a leading platform that brings together data from 360° cameras, smartphones, drones, laser scanners, BIM models, project schedules and more. OpenSpace enriches that data with location, field context and reality-based progress analytics, making it easier for project teams to coordinate around what is actually happening on-site, communicate across stakeholders, and make faster decisions. This new way of working, with visual reality at the center, is making life easier for field teams, delivering literal ROI, and making AI genuinely more useful for builders.

“Construction doesn’t need another disconnected tool or system that asks teams to manually input information into a form,” said Jeevan Kalanithi, CEO and Co-Founder of OpenSpace. “The next phase of the industry will be defined by platforms that understand the physical world and make that intelligence available wherever teams already work. Today at Waypoint, we demonstrated how OpenSpace is powering a new way of reality-based work, with an open platform that interoperates with the systems and technologies that work best for our customers’ businesses.”

A New Way to Work in the Field
At Waypoint 2026, OpenSpace previewed new capabilities designed to make the smartphone a powerful tool for capturing, understanding, and acting on jobsite reality, reducing administrative work and helping teams move more quickly from observation to action.

The company announced a breakthrough in its Autolocation technology, revealing AI Autolocation 2.0 with Live Location. In construction, location of a photo taken is often the most important, but almost always missing, piece of information. OpenSpace made this a priority to solve for their customers. AI Autolocation works like GPS, but inside buildings where GPS does not operate, and it works without the need to install wireless hardware devices like bluetooth beacons. AI Autolocation 1.0 helped users automatically pin issues created on mobile to their location on a drawing. AI Autolocation 2.0 takes it further, allowing users to understand their position in real time, all the time, powering entirely new field workflows.

The technology powers a new mobile experience called Site Mode, which puts a user’s live location directly on project drawings and BIM models, even when offline, allowing users in the field to instantly access relevant information, open Field Notes and expedite issue workflows based on exactly where they are on the jobsite.

The technology also powers AI Walk-and-Talk, a capability that allows users to create structured updates by speaking naturally as they move through the jobsite. The images and voice are tagged in real time to jobsite locations, providing a rich data set of site status. Walk-and-Talk powers workflows such as daily reports, with OpenSpace compiling the information into an end-of-day report to reduce significant time spent on administrative work.

Verified Progress, Not Opinions
OpenSpace also showcased major advancements to OpenSpace Track, its reality-based progress-tracking solution for projects ranging from multifamily housing to hospitality projects to some of the most complex, high-value and mission-critical projects. OpenSpace Track helps customers verify installed work, compare actual progress with planned milestones, identify schedule risks, forecast future performance, and view trends across multiple projects at the portfolio level.

Due to high customer demand from mission-critical owners and builders, OpenSpace has expanded its progress tracking offerings with new functionality for quantity tracking, markups and predictive analytics. Combined with the power of the full OpenSpace platform as well as optional walk and pilot services, customers are using these capabilities to build faster and more reliably, with visual reality at the center.

The company also announced its Track API, which allows customers to pull progress tracking data into whatever core system a customer uses — ERP, BI dashboards, or PM tools — and drive more workflows in both the field and office. In particular, the company highlighted customers using Track and the Track API to provide accelerated payments to their subcontractors using a shared visual record that all parties can trust, demonstrating literal ROI impact for the industry as a whole.

“For the construction industry, the field is where money is made or lost, yet progress has traditionally been measured through manual updates, periodic observations, and individual judgment,” said Michael Jones, Vice President of Product Management at OpenSpace. “Visual Intelligence replaces opinions with a more objective, timely view of what has actually been completed, which can truly transform the difficult economics of construction. It allows payments and capital to flow more efficiently from lenders to owners to GCs to trades, each and every month.”

Giving AI Agents Eyes on the Jobsite
OpenSpace outlined the next generation of AI built for the “real world” economy. Most AI systems are designed to interpret documents and text. Construction, however, takes place in a physical environment that changes every minute, every day. To provide meaningful value, AI must understand not only what was planned, but also what is truly happening in the real, physical world. This type of AI is often labeled “Physical AI,” and it represents the cutting edge of AI broadly.

OpenSpace announced the new OpenSpace Agent Ecosystem – an open, interoperable AI agent platform that understands what is happening on the jobsite, and can tackle work that teams have to do. OpenSpace leverages its foundation of processing large amounts of visual data, enriching it with location, meaning and high-level analytics, and is now making that intelligence accessible to AI agents to help tackle real work. OpenSpace is building agentic AI technology capable of understanding reality data that is captured, organized, and mapped to the correct project spatial context. Having analyzed imagery from more than 110,000 construction projects representing over 77 billion square feet, with more than 500 million expert-verified labels and descriptions, OpenSpace has built a foundation of real-world visual and spatial intelligence that can help AI understand how construction actually progresses.

This foundation can enable AI agents – in OpenSpace or in a partner system using OpenSpace via MCP – to assist with everyday workflows like daily logs, routine inspections, and clearing punch lists. OpenSpace is already putting this vision into practice, working with a select group of Early Access customers to build and deploy AI agents against real-world construction workflows.

“AI agents need eyes,” said Michael Fleischman, CTO and Co-Founder, OpenSpace. “An agent may be able to read every report associated with a project, and that provides real value. But without visual and spatial context, AI still cannot fully understand the scope of what drives business results for our customers – that data lies in the field. OpenSpace is building that connection between AI and the physical world so agents can become genuinely useful partners to the people delivering projects. This kind of real-world reasoning has been the vision behind OpenSpace from the beginning, and we’re excited to now put that capability in the hands of our customers.”

Throughout Waypoint 2026, OpenSpace customers shared how they are using Visual Intelligence to improve coordination, reduce administrative work, validate progress, deliver literal ROI through accelerated payments, and make faster decisions.

“OpenSpace puts Autodesk Issues front and center with pinpoint accuracy so we can get them resolved faster. The faster we resolve issues, the greater benefit to the project,” said Zeeshan Haider, Director of Business Process, ISEC, Inc. “I worked with one company that could measure job profitability based on the number of days issues stayed open. So, if we can increase the efficiency with which we resolve open issues, that means money to the bottom line. And at the end of the day, that satisfies our customers. They feel like we’re on top of things and getting them done faster.”

Additional information about upcoming feature availability, participation in Early Access and Beta programs, and general customer access will be shared in the coming months.

To watch Waypoint 2026 and learn more about the innovations announced at the event, visit https://www.openspace.ai/waypoint/.

About OpenSpace
OpenSpace is the Visual Intelligence Platform for the built world, helping teams reduce risk and increase efficiency. Powered by Spatial AI, its image-first platform streamlines coordination between field and office teams, providing reality-based, real-time intelligence for faster decisions and fewer delays. Customers like Suffolk, Comfort Systems, and Tishman Speyer rely on OpenSpace to gain critical insights from their sites, avoid destructive investigations, and finish projects ahead of schedule. To date, general contractors, trades, and owners have relied on OpenSpace to analyze imagery on more than 110,000 construction projects across 132 countries. To learn more, visit www.openspace.ai and follow us on LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Lindsay Hull
Zer0 to 5ive for OpenSpace
openspace@0to5.com
or
media@openspace.ai

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SOURCE OpenSpace

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