Transforming Financial Wellness through Artificial Intelligence and the Metaverse - Part II

Broadcast Retirement Network's Jeffrey Snyder continues the discussion about improving financial wellness and financial literacy with artificial intelligence with SS&C Technologies' Alicia Hartjen and Phil Carden.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

This morning on BRN Finance, transforming financial wellness through artificial intelligence and the metaverse, part two of our conversation, and we're going to welcome back to the program, Alicia Hartgen and Phil Carden, both of SS&C Technologies. Alicia, Phil, great to see you both again this morning. Thank you.

Phil, we had a great conversation about the uses of the metaverse and some of these newer technologies, virtual reality. You even brought up Fortnite, which I have never played, but I know it's very popular. For retirement record keepers and third parties, so I'm thinking about advisors and other people in the retirement ecosystem, how do you take these technologies and plug them in to your existing platform?

So I'm thinking about record keepers in particular. How do you plug this in, these technologies in?

Phil Carden, SS&C Technologies

Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's probably a couple of ways that we would look at this. So first of all, some of this capability can be relatively standalone, and that's the great thing about it.

So something like the financial wellness platform, you don't necessarily need to be directly integrated to a whole host of kind of backend applications or third party applications for it to add value. It's information, and if we can bring the right people to that information and make it more accessible through these technologies, then that's going to add a whole load of value from the start. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a huge implementation or integration effort for it to add value.

But the great thing about a lot of the record keeping systems at SS&C, or probably all of the record keeping systems at SS&C, and certainly the way that we work with the financial wellness platform, is they've evolved over time to be ready to integrate with a whole load of these third party technologies. So they're API enabled. The integrations are relatively well trodden paths and actually over time have become pretty standardized.

And what that then means is these technologies that we're looking to build on, whether it's AI or the metaverse, we can use those API integrations to seamlessly integrate and really start building very, very customized and personalized experiences for the users. So as you're walking through a metaverse or engaging with an AI interface, it can pull your records out, tell you your balance, tell you the investment profile and help you then consume information that's relevant to your profile. Obviously, that's going deeper into integration and more complex.

But we really can cover the full scale of those implementations, right down to the most sophisticated, fully integrated application architecture that really understands you as an individual, building towards that kind of segment of one type idea where everything that you consume is directly relevant and tailored towards you with our understanding of what you hold, the questions you've asked before, the things you're interested in and the things about your lifestyle or your retirement age that you've already told us and we build your education in and around that set.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, it sounds very modular, which I think in today's agile technology environment is really kind of the current and future of development. My understanding, I'm not a technologist by any stretch of the imagination, but I've been around technology enough to think that that's what it sounds like. Alicia, ultimately our business and most businesses about results, what's been the feedback from clients and those clients can be plant sponsors, but also record keepers in terms of these newer solutions?

Because your SS&C technology, technology is in the name of your company. So I think there's probably a little bit of pressure saying, hey, we got to continue to evolve and create new products and services. So what has been the feedback?

Alicia Hartjen, SS&C Technologies

Absolutely. Yeah, there's excitement, excitement over how this can enhance the participant experience, but also some caution. So our clients say, how do we know the engine isn't going to say something that it shouldn't?

So that's back to those guardrails and it's making sure that we are very clear on what's involved and supported in the solutions. And it's also making sure that these solutions are scalable to address each client's unique needs. That's certainly core to our business.

Every client has different goals and objectives, and we want to make sure we're leveraging technology in ways that's most meaningful for them. When you think about the metaverse, what we hear from clients, it's all excitement. It's an incredibly powerful experience.

There's so many ways it can be leveraged. The challenge is identifying the path that's going to be most meaningful for clients to dip their toes into the virtual water. So that's really where we see the challenge.

There's so many opportunities. Even at conferences, when we demo the metaverse, it literally stops people in their tracks as they're walking by. They will see an avatar on the screen.

They will stop. They will circle back and say, what am I seeing? And they'll see somebody, an avatar in a financial wellness quest.

They'll see people engaging with advisors in chat rooms. It's an attention grabber. And again, those use cases are limitless.

It's just determining what's really going to add the most value to our client's business, what are their objectives, and how can we help them support that.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And then just to follow up on that, in terms of the actual results, because I agree, I mean, it is a showstopper. If I'm walking by and I see this experience. But the results themselves, what the participants are actually doing with the technology, that alone is a proof statement, right?

Alicia Hartjen, SS&C Technologies

Yeah, and it's going to take us some time to really dive into the results. But at a minimum, we know we're going to be able to get a lot of data out of these technologies. And that data is going to allow us to learn more about the participant interests, what their financial challenges are, and how they choose to engage with these new technologies.

I think the important thing here is we know Gen AI and all of these AI technologies, they're going to make us more efficient in all walks of life. And that's what we expect in financial wellness as well. But it doesn't eliminate all of those current financial wellness modules and all of those other components to our solution that are available today.

People want to engage in different ways. And sometimes people want to model scenarios with a calculator. They want to download an article they can read in their spare time.

They might want to take a quiz or have other objectives from a financial wellness perspective. And Gen AI doesn't take away from that. But it does give users a new way to interact with education and make that experience feel more conversational where they're getting responses.

They can refine their discussion. They're being directed to personalized resources. So it really, I think, elevates wellness.

And that's really where I think we'll get whole new levels of results and data out of these programs that we're going to be excited to see going into the next year.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Phil, I want to kind of close out our conversation about some new technologies, but I have a couple of ideas I want to run by you as well. The first is, could you possibly have, you know, ours is a very regulated business. So could you have a virtual compliance professional?

Because Alicia was saying that some of the guardrails, in all seriousness, could you have a virtual compliance professional review some of the recommendations? That's a question. And then ultimately, you know, I used to play games like Sid Meier's Civilization.

Could you incorporate and be partnering with the game manufacturers to actually take this and import it? You know, one of the things you need to think about when you're building a civilization or in SimCity is to have a retirement program for your population so that when they age, they have money. I mean, I'm just giving some ideas.

So basically, my question is, what type of technologies can we expect? Maybe some of my ideas make sense.

Phil Carden, SS&C Technologies

They definitely make sense. And yeah, probably a couple of them we should talk about more. So definitely we are taking an approach that's aligned to some of those gaming capabilities and technologies.

And that kind of, you know, the simulation of how that technology can help you envisage what your financial outcomes might be, depending on the decisions you make, is definitely part of where some of our thinking is. We're going to continue to experiment with this and, you know, experiment safely within the guardrails. And you're not the first person, I'm sorry to say, Chet, to have had that AI-driven compliance idea.

But we're definitely going to continue to have, you know, to have our compliance specialists and those of our clients very close to what we do as we continue to push and roll this out. And yeah, the AI use cases and the Metaverse use cases will continue to go. And as Alicia has kind of said, we've got a lot to do to take where we are today, which is understanding the how and the what we can achieve, and then really build on that and get it out into more customers.

And, you know, review the data as it comes in and start to build, build, build. The other thing that we're going to continue to do, as we have done up till now, is to try and do some horizon scanning to look at what's beyond those capabilities that we've talked about today. Whether that's look at other industries, I mean, a lot of where we use the Metaverse is currently much more advanced in some other industries fashion.

And some of the, you know, the big technologies are more advanced in Metaverse capabilities than our industry is. So we'll continue to kind of look around us and see what we can learn and gain from. There's some fascinating use cases out there that we'll continue to keep on picking.

But then also we have to look at the technologies that are coming down the track. You know, just in the news recently, the vast and continuous updates in quantum technologies, how they're going to impact maybe not so much in the experience side, but some of the decision making that might sit behind this. So we're going to continue to have a very forward looking approach to the technologies and then really try and make sure that we're engaged with the specialists in the areas like Alicia and everyone else that we have at SS&C about how we can apply those.

Ultimately, to bring better outcomes to the savers and to the members and to the investors of our clients.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, it sounds like it's actually, you know, anecdotally, it sounds very fun. You're almost like a game producer. And those things are like they produce like blockbusters.

They spend millions and millions and millions of dollars to produce Grand Theft Auto 55. So it sounds like a fun job, Phil and Alicia. You must be enjoying yourself as well.

We're going to have to leave it there. Guys, great guys. I should say a great conversation.

And we enjoy having you, of course. We look forward to talking with you both very soon.

Alicia Hartjen, SS&C Technologies

Thank you, Jeff.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Thanks a lot. And don't forget to subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Warning Pulse for all the news in one place. Details, of course, at our website.

And we're back again tomorrow for another edition of BRN. Until then, I'm Jeff Snyder. Stay safe.

Keep on saving. And don't forget, roll with the changes.