MassMutual's AI strategy: 12-month contracts, 30% productivity gains, zero lock-in

Enterprise AI teams face a dilemma: The best models today might not be the best models a year from now. Mass Mutual's answer is to stop making long-term bets — and build infrastructure that can swap models as the market shifts.“The world of AI today is extremely dynamic,” Sears Merritt, Mass Mutual CIO, explained in a new VB Beyond the Pilot podcast. “We wanted to make sure we were positioned to ride that wave of dynamism.”The strategy appears to be paying off in a big way. Mass Mutual has measured a roughly 30% increase in developer productivity, while AI-powered contact center workflows have reduced resolution times from 10 minutes to one and cut costs from dollars to cents. But the broader lesson for IT leaders may be less about the results and more about how the company is thoughtfully building its AI infrastructure and keeping users at the center. Maintaining optionality for the possibilities of tomorrowMassMutual works with vendors at the leading edge, but keeps those relationships on a clock. “Those relationships are capped so that we maintain optionality for best-of-breed tools as things mature in this space, and at some point, settle down and stabilize,” Merritt said. That philosophy extends to open-source models. Merritt says his team is “100%” looking at open-source tools, and sees the technology playing a big role in how MassMutual (and similar companies) use AI. “We're certainly going to need frontier models and leading edge capabilities to do what today is impossible, and tomorrow will be possible,” he said. Measuring outcomes from the startMassMutual's AI efforts fall into two broad categories.The first focuses on enablement: Putting productivity-enhancing tools such as Copilot and virtual assistants into the hands of all employees. The second involves what Merritt describes as “deepen and focus” initiatives, where teams target a specific workflow or business process that will have a strong impact on advisors, policyholders, or employees.R