Artificial intelligence deployed under a newly extended agreement with Microsoft will improve worker satisfaction at Suncorp by reducing time spent on mundane tasks, the insurer says.

Suncorp says it began experimenting with large language models before ChatGPT was widely released. It now wants to more quickly integrate AI at scale across operations and is exploring 120 generative AI use cases across its operations, with 20 slated for next June.

The five-year Microsoft partnership will accelerate use of AI and cloud tech to “transform insurance”, Suncorp says.  

“It’s about building the future of insurance,” chief information officer Adam Bennett said.  “AI is empowering our employees, making them better equipped to deliver exceptional customer outcomes while also gaining more satisfaction from their work.”

Suncorp’s “Smart Knowledge” already uses thousands of procedures, underwriting guidelines and articles to deliver timely and relevant information to contact centre teams.

It also uses Azure OpenAI Service to summarise claims, including next steps to progress them. Suncorp says this saves up to 30 minutes a claim.

“It’s very exciting to see GenAI move from experimentation phase to full-scale production across the enterprise and start to have a real impact,” Mr Bennett said. “Our partnership with Microsoft sets the bar for the industry and will deliver real benefits.

“Having established the right foundations through cloud migration, engineering excellence, digitisation and automation, we are now working together to safely deploy GenAI at scale and transform our end-to-end operations.”  

Suncorp has rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot, and offers staff an “AI+U” virtual learning series.