Microsoft’s AI saves staff at life insurer TAL almost a day a week

Life insurer TAL says it is saving its employees almost the equivalent of a day’s work after it signed a three-year agreement with Microsoft to adopt its powerful artificial intelligence tools.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the company’s AI Copilot has become a ‘valuable new member of the team’. Picture: AFP

Life insurer TAL says it is saving its employees almost the equivalent of a day’s work after it signed a three-year agreement with Microsoft to adopt its powerful artificial intelligence tools.

TAL is the latest Australian company to harness Microsoft’s AI platform. Law firm Clayton Utz is also using the tech giant’s services under a partnership with IT consultancy LAB3.

TAL trialled Microsoft’s AI Copilot as part of the US company’s early access program. It is now buying an extra 2000 licences for staff after it recorded a dramatic increase in productivity.

Hinesh Chauhan, chief information officer at TAL, said Copilot – which is incorporated in Microsoft’s suite of products including Word, Outlook and Excel – had saved staff up to six hours a week.

Hinesh Chauhan, chief information officer at TAL, said Microsoft Copilot had saved staff up to six hours a week.

Copilot had been particularly effective in helping teams summarise and “read inferences” from Word documents.

“I guess, (the) baggage of financial services is there’s still a lot of unstructured data. There’s a lot of reading inferences that are required by people working in the industry. So this is where this really gives folk a bit of a head start,” Mr Chauhan said.

“We’ve got teams that do a lot of that. What we’re seeing is one to two hours productivity boost, just simply from the day to day use that knowledge workers have with Microsoft 365, so using Excel, using Word or PowerPoint, you get a bit of headstart from that.”

Mr Chauhan said the technology required some thought about how it is used to ensure it boosts productivity. Generative AI – which is what Copilot uses – allows people to perform a range of tasks from sorting and drafting emails, to creating presentations and summarising documents via basic verbal prompts.

To make the most of this technology, staff have to become proficient in what is known as prompt engineering to ensure AI understands the user’s intent and therefore can create efficiencies.

“You need to be quite thoughtful and intentful about how you go about doing that,” Mr Chauhan said. “So Excel, for example, is still not fantastic. We are as life insurance business, so we’ve got actuaries, lot of folks who deal with data and sophisticated techniques with data.

“In the early iterations, it (Excel’s Copilot) wasn’t as powerful. So we built up a repository of use cases, and then what we did is we said, ‘Well, how do we help people identify the specific activities and tasks that Copilot is useful for”’ Because, in some areas, we … were trying to get more juice out of the tool, but you’re spending time away from actually getting the result.”

TAL is also using Microsoft’s AI to improve customer experiences by streamlining insurance claims. Developed using Azure OpenAI Service, the Claims Assist Knowledge Search is a research assistant for TAL’s teams to tap into TAL’s knowledge bank, and help them respond to customer queries faster. The life insurer is also developing a solution which automates indexing of emails using a combination of AI and robotics to improve efficiency and accuracy.

“If we can improve the customer experience so it takes less effort from individuals and our customers and partners, it actually will translate to even better experience for staff. It’s a strong correlation there. So from that perspective, Microsoft’s partnership is important,” Mr Chauhan said.

TAL engineers will also have access to GitHub Copilot, using it to check their coding, which it says will speed up the development of solutions for customers and partners in a safer way. The broader Copilot rollout will be underpinned by TAL’s adaptive framework for responsible and safe use of AI.

Microsoft Australia and New Zealand managing director Steven Worrall said the collaboration with TAL “highlights the incredible potential of AI, cloud computing and data to transform life insurance in Australia”.

“The company has already gained a first-mover advantage in generative AI adoption through our Copilot for Microsoft 365 Early Access Program, and we are excited to explore more ways to enhance customer engagement and enrich employee experiences.”

LAB3 co-founder and chief executive Chris Cook has signed an MOU with Microsoft to accelerate the use of AI across the region.

LAB3, which was founded in Melbourne in 2017, is creating an AI Centre of Excellence in a partnership with Microsoft to accelerate the technology’s adoption across Asian markets.

LAB3 co-founder and chief executive Chris Cook said a lot the firm’s clients “don’t know where to start” in regard to adopting AI. He said while there was much hype around the technology, there was also fear, particularly after Samsung staff uploaded sensitive code to ChatGPT, forcing the Korean electronics titan to ban the popular AI platform.

“They got IP leakage, because the AI has gone and referenced external information and then continue to use that information in the public domain,” Mr Cook said. “So the key here is to remove that fear. Our motto is fear less, achieve more.

“Our relationship with Microsoft is geared towards empowering businesses with innovative AI-driven solutions. Through this collaboration we aim to unlock opportunities not just for our clients but for the entire ecosystem, setting new benchmarks in how technology can address complex challenges and deliver substantial impact.”

Simon Newcomb, technology partner at Clayton Utz, said: “We are developing some AI solutions where we see a strategic benefit.”

These include using AI to develop tools, aimed at lifting levels of client service, making better use of data, increasing efficiencies, reducing risk and “making some tasks easier and more enjoyable for staff”.

“For some use cases, we see benefits in having control and transparency in how the applications work which you don’t get in off-the-shelf AI solutions.

“And, we also need any application to meet strict cyber security standards – so we have chosen to run our applications and access the LLMs (large language models) all from inside the secure Microsoft Azure environment in Australia.”

Originally published as Microsoft’s AI saves staff at life insurer TAL almost a day a week