NEW YORK and NOIDA, India, HCLTech, a leading global technology company, today announced a new seven-year agreement with The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America® (Guardian), one of the largest mutual companies in the U.S. and a leading provider of insurance, retirement, wealth management and employee benefits solutions. The new agreement builds on the companies’ previously announced partnership and expands their collaboration to advance Guardian’s AI-powered modernization across technology and operations to support long-term business growth.
Through this partnership, the companies aim to accelerate value realization and efficiency for Guardian through differentiated experiences and reduced friction, while creating AI-led solutions and IP for the insurance industry. Additionally, HCLTech will accelerate technology and talent transformation across data, applications and engineering while also driving operational excellence across group benefits, individual protection, retirement and wealth management, resulting in reduced costs, faster time to market and continued delivery of high-quality experiences for customers, advisors and distribution partners.
HCLTech will expand the use of its AI Service Transformation Platform, AI Force to create and deploy agentic capabilities for the business, and further advance AI adoption and innovation. These capabilities will align with Guardian’s product operating model and help create a more resilient delivery foundation that can scale with the business.
As part of the expanded strategic partnership, HCLTech will acquire Guardian India, a high-impact global capability center with a large pool of specialized talent supporting technology, operations and shared services playing a vital role in advancing Guardian’s transformation. Nearly 2,000 employees will integrate into HCLTech with the establishment of a dedicated Strategic Business Unit focused exclusively on supporting Guardian to drive technology innovation, engineering excellence, operational transformation and maturity across Guardian’s products and services. Karunakaran Azhisur, Country Head of Guardian India, will join HCLTech to lead this Strategic Business Unit.
“This partnership is an important step in advancing our operating model and scaling AI across our enterprise,” said Steve Rullo, chief digital and technology officer at Guardian. “Together with HCLTech, we are strengthening how we operate to drive greater consistency and scalability while continuing to invest in the capabilities that differentiate Guardian, strengthen operational excellence, and create value for our customers, policyholders and distribution partners.”
“This expanded partnership is another testament to our continued leadership in the insurance industry and reflects the strength of our relationship with Guardian to further drive their AI-enabled journey, as well as a shared focus on scaling AI and modernizing operations,” said Srinivasan Seshadri, chief growth officer and global head of financial services at HCLTech. “We are excited to welcome the talented team joining us from Guardian. Together, we have a unique opportunity for us to partner to co-create products and intellectual property that will deepen HCLTech’s domain expertise, further strengthen our AI-intrinsic platforms and help clients achieve sustained business growth.”
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