Ascensus Unveils AI-Driven Personalized Financial Wellness

Ascensus has enhanced its financial wellness offering to include Financial Finesse’s Aimee artificial intelligence (AI).

Ascensus says Aimee is a first-of-its-kind virtual coach that is available to all Ascensus and institutional partner plans that offer Financial Finesse’s program to savers. It uses machine learning to provide employees with personalized, real-time guidance that can help build short-term financial resiliency while also considering long-term financial goals.

For advisers looking to deliver innovative retirement plan solutions that include financial wellness to employers, Ascensus says Aimee further deepens the value and attractiveness of the financial wellness benefit.

Aimee is the latest in a series of strategic technology investments Ascensus has made to provide more personalization and guidance throughout employees’ retirement planning journey.

Last year, the firm launched the READYSAVE retirement mobile application and announced the expansion of its managed account investment offerings, with plans to onboard additional managed account providers this year.

Beginning this month, Ascensus’ digital financial wellness experience will benefits from these Aimee-enabled enhancements:

• Greater personalization. The program will now offer real-time guidance and custom action plans to help participants achieve individualized milestones.
• Increased engagement. The program will show participants dynamic financial wellness scores as well as a dashboard to motivate them to continuously track and improve upon their progress.
• Enhanced reporting. For sponsors, Aimee will capture insights on employees’ key financial questions and priorities to illuminate workforce wellness trends for employers.

“In today’s world, providing employees access to personalized guidance and education services like Aimee can lead to more informed financial choices,” says Kevin Cox, president of retirement at Ascensus. “Ascensus is proud to partner with Financial Finesse, which continues to deliver innovative solutions for advisers seeking to offer plan sponsors and their employees tools that can lead to a more secure retirement.”

Liz Davidson, founder and CEO of Financial Finesse, adds, “Ascensus is paving new ground with the launch of Aimee to bring unlimited, personalized financial coaching to every single retirement plan participant, regardless of income, job type or any other factor. To my knowledge, it’s the only recordkeeper that has made an investment of this scale in an independent financial wellness program to create retirement plans that truly prioritize participants. The launch also underscores Ascensus’ commitment to supporting its retirement plan advisers, who can now easily combine best-in-class financial coaching with their own best-in-class offering.”