Sun Life helps agents answer with confidence

The Business Issue

For more than 150 years, Sun Life has focused on helping clients achieve lifetime financial security and healthier lives. Operating in over 25 countries with 70,000 employees, the company’s scale is a strength. But it has also created a growing problem inside its operations.

As the business expanded, the ability for service agents to quickly access accurate knowledge began to break down. Critical information lived across multiple systems – including SharePoint, Confluence, and internal knowledge bases – forcing agents into what the team described as “swivel chair” work: jumping between tools to piece together answers.

The knowledge itself wasn’t helping. Articles were dense and built for completeness over speed, making it difficult for agents to find what they needed during live customer interactions.

The problem was bigger than a slow search experience. Service-level agreements were impacted, escalations increased, and employee morale dropped. Agents sometimes relied on personal experience or colleagues instead of standardized answers, creating inconsistency and risk across the business.

At scale, the numbers compounded. Teams were handling more than 3,000 cases per day and most cases required knowledge searches. Even small inefficiencies multiplied into thousands of minutes lost – and more importantly, they increased the risk of incorrect decisions in a highly regulated insurance environment.

Sun Life needed a way to deliver the right answer, at the moment of need, without slowing agents down or increasing risk.

The Solution

Sun Life started with a simple idea: Instead of asking agents to search for answers, let them ask a question and receive a trusted response instantly.

To make that real, the team implemented Pega GenAI Knowledge Agent, embedded directly within its existing Pega applications. The goal wasn’t to replace systems, but to extend them, bringing AI into the flow of work.

Knowledge Agent connects to Sun Life’s knowledge management ecosystem, which allows the frontline team to ask questions in real time while processing cases. Instead of switching tools, agents receive contextual answers immediately within their workflow.

This shift eliminated the need to navigate multiple knowledge sources. As one leader described it, “The end user can literally ask the question while they’re working on the case.”

From a technology standpoint, Pega provided flexibility and control that mattered in a regulated environment. The solution allowed Sun Life to configure different large language models (LLMs), apply governance controls, and ensure compliance with data residency and security requirements.

Equally important was how the solution was introduced. Sun Life started with pilots, testing with a small group of users before scaling. Feedback loops, reporting, and accuracy tracking helped build trust – both with customer service representatives and with governance teams.

The approach emphasized minimal disruption. AI was embedded directly into existing workflows, not introduced as a separate tool, ensuring adoption could grow naturally over time.

The Results

The impact was immediate and measurable.

Before Knowledge Agent, customer service reps spent up to one and a half minutes searching for answers across systems. With the new approach, responses are delivered in seconds, directly in context.

At Sun Life’s scale, that change added up quickly. Across thousands of cases per day, the organization realized savings of more than 2,000 minutes per day.

Accuracy also improved significantly. Through iteration and content refinement, the team increased response ccuracy to 98%, helping build confidence in the system.

Beyond efficiency, the solution began to change how work gets done. Frontline teams no longer needed to rely on scattered tools or informal knowledge. Instead, they could access consistent, trusted answers in the moment, helping reduce escalations and improve decision-making.

The rollout itself demonstrated strong momentum. What started as a small pilot expanded to over 1,000 users, with plans to reach 2,000 users by year-end.

Just as important, Knowledge Agent surfaced an unexpected benefit: It exposed gaps in existing knowledge content. By highlighting where answers were weak, the solution helped teams refine and improve their knowledge base – strengthening the foundation for future growth.

Today, Sun Life is building on that foundation. The team is extending Knowledge Agent into more workflows, integrating with email and voice capabilities, and expanding knowledge sources – all focused on delivering contextual, proactive support.

The result is a shift from searching for answers to receiving them – enabling faster service, more confident agents, and better outcomes for the people they serve.

Want to dive deeper into their journey? Watch their PegaWorld session here.