Both Manulife and Canada Life parent Great-West defended their AI capabilities on earnings calls Thursday, despite sector-wide concerns that ChatGPT will disrupt the industry. Great-West CEO David Harney said ChatGPT can have a “very good conversation” with users about topics like asset allocation, retirement and market risk, but said that consumers will still need to seek out the plans that meet the chatbots’ criteria. When it comes to the insurance plans themselves, “we have that in all our markets,” he said. (The Logic)

Talking point: Some Canadian insurers, like Manulife and Intact, get high marks in Evident’s rankings of companies’ AI expertise. But Insurify’s new app on ChatGPT, launched in the U.S. this week, has nonetheless dragged the insurance industry into a large debate about whether large language models will displace white-collar work, like insurance brokers. Executives from Sun Life and Great-West said on Thursday earnings calls that they were open to growth opportunities through M&A, but that there would be a high bar for deals. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P/TSX composite index dropped Thursday as AI-related concerns weighed on financial and software stocks.

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