INTERVIEW: Sumitomo Life Eying 20-B.-Yen AI Investment

Tokyo, March 23 (Jiji Press)–Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. will invest 20 billion yen in artificial intelligence over the three years from fiscal 2026, aiming to lift productivity, President Yukinori Takada has said in a recent interview with Jiji Press. The initiative is aimed at cutting total working hours for office employees by 10 pct and reinforcing data-driven product recommendations, he said. The major Japanese life insurer is also considering the domestic deployment of know-how of subsidiary Singapore Life, known as Singlife, which is strong in policy sales and sales agency management using digital technology. As regulations have been tightened, including supervisory guidelines issued by Japan’s Financial Services Agency that promote comparison-based policy recommendations aligned with customer intent, the company is developing a digital tool to help agencies compare policies more easily. It expects to roll out the system in the second half of fiscal 2026. Sumitomo Life plans to earn a total of 1.33 trillion yen in group core business profit over the three years through fiscal 2028. Takada said the company “aims to lift its annual profit above 400 billion yen” chiefly by boosting investment returns. Group core business profit in fiscal 2024, which ended in March last year, stood at 379.8 billion yen. The company also set a new target of raising the number of overseas customers at subsidiaries to 10 million by 2030 from about six million at present, seeking to offset the impact of the shrinking domestic market by expanding its global customer base. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]