Sunlife’s Laura Money on Designing AI Around People

Laura Money, Sun Life’s EVP and chief information technology innovation officer, explains how the financial services company is using AI to improve client experience, advisor productivity, and enterprise architecture. She and Peter High discuss responsible AI, federated “co-build” operating models, and Sun Life’s consortium with Lightworks, Scotiabank, and Telus to govern agents safely.

Key points

• Sun Life treats technology, data, and AI as core to serving clients, not a separate IT function.
• Employees started with an internal chatbot, Sunlight Asks, in early 2023 to learn AI safely.
• Sun Life’s architecture team built a co-architect agent that removes about 80% of initial architecture work.
• AI governance relies on clear guardrails, human oversight, and 14 control partners, with more automation for low-risk approvals.
• Sun Life co-founded an AI consortium with Lightworks, Scotiabank, and Telus to build a shared agentic control plane.
• Money argues AI’s real value is an “empathy dividend”: more time for advisors to focus on human trust and client care.