Tradition meets technology: how we are embracing AI

Funeral care is a profession built on tradition. The work is deeply personal, often practical and rooted in communities, with many of the skills that make a good funeral director having changed remarkably little over generations.

At Life Services Group, our own heritage stretches back to 1812. Today, our Group includes Dignity Funeral Directors, Dignity Legal Services, Farewill, Simplicity Cremations and the Crematorium and Memorial Group, supporting people and families through wills, funeral planning, funerals, probate, cremation and memorialisation.

That history matters. But a traditional profession does not have to stand still. And nor should it.

Across Life Services, we are looking at how technology, including artificial intelligence, can help our colleagues work more effectively and make it simpler for families to get the support they need.

Last year, we launched an AI and Data Academy with Multiverse, a leading upskilling platform, initially enrolling 55 of our colleagues on courses ranging from AI and Strategy Leadership to AI for Business Value and AI Powered Productivity.

There were some very practical reasons for doing so. Like many large organisations with a long history, parts of our business relied heavily on manual processes. That included branch-level forecasting, processing more than 100,000 paper cheques a year and using spreadsheets to keep track of leases and sites across a large national estate.

AI gives us an opportunity to rethink some of that work. Used well, it can help colleagues analyse information, automate repetitive administrative tasks and spend less time on processes that add little value.

We have also been investing more broadly in the technology that sits behind Life Services. Our websites have been brought onto a common technology platform and we are developing an AI-enabled Customer Engagement Platform, helping us better understand the different ways customers interact with the Group and, where appropriate, connect them with relevant services and support.

The potential is significant, but so is the need to use these tools carefully.

There are parts of funeral care that technology cannot replicate. Sitting with a recently bereaved family, listening to what they want and helping them arrange a funeral for somebody they love requires judgement, empathy and human understanding. Those qualities remain at the heart of our profession.

The opportunity for AI is to support the people providing that care. If technology can reduce paperwork, make information easier to find or take repetitive tasks off a colleague's desk, that gives them more time to focus on the work where their experience and judgement matter most.

It is also why investing in technology has to go hand in hand with investing in people. Our AI and Data Academy is designed to give colleagues practical skills they can apply in their jobs, while building the confidence to understand where AI can be useful and where human judgement remains essential.

A profession with more than two centuries of history is unlikely to change overnight, nor should it. But the way people plan for later life, arrange funerals and access support is already changing.

For Life Services, modernisation means making sure our technology keeps pace while preserving the care, compassion and personal service on which the profession has always depended.