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Life insurer TAL says it is saving its employees almost the equivalent of a day’s work after it signed a three-year agreement with Microsoft to adopt its powerful artificial intelligence tools.

Meanwhile, Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to misleading air-safety regulators in the run-up to two deadly 737 MAX crashes, a stunning concession that would brand the world’s biggest aerospace company a felon.

And industry super funds, which had built what looked like an unassailable lead over their commercial rivals, have regularly taken second place as the performance results flow in for the 12 months to July.

Mining and energy sector losses helped drag the ASX 200 index down 0.8 per cent today.