Retirement Tech in 2026 AI, Operational Efficiency, and Better Participant Experience

In this expert interview, Jessica Calabrese, Head of Retirement Product Strategy at FIS Global, explains how AI is improving participant experiences, streamlining retirement plan operations, and helping financial institutions deliver smarter, more personalized retirement solutions. She also discusses cloud technology, digital transformation, automation, strategic partnerships, and the future of retirement platforms.

Joining me now, Jessica Calabrese.

She's the head of retirement product strategy at FIS Global. Jessica, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.

Yes, great to see you. Thanks for having me.

You know, I'm always excited. I have to say, I like talking technology. I I think it's a really big part of our business and I'm excited to talk to you because I think there's an evolution going on.

Let me let me start by asking you what I think is a very establishing question. And and I want to ask, are are retirement are your clients even more demanding?

And when I think of your clients, I think of the record keepers, but they have clients too, plan sponsors and participants.

Are they demanding even more from their retirement ecosystem?

Yeah yes. Um, they have to, I think because more is constantly being demanded of them as well. And the world around us is changing.

So participants, especially those coming up in the in the newer generations, they expect experiences and services the way that they get it outside of their workplace 401k plans or retirement plans.

So they want instant access to information. They want help, they want intuitive experiences. Um, they want, they want advice.

And they want it at at the touch of a fingertip, right? They want it when they get on their phone. You can do a Google search today and you suddenly you're in an AI experience where the next questions are thought for you already.

You don't have to think of them on your own.

So I think, yeah, please, go ahead.

No, I was I was going to follow up and just say ask you, so when you talk to clients and you again, your clients are the major financial institutions in the United States and probably around the globe as well. What what are they saying are their clients' biggest needs? Is it access to information? Is it operational efficiency? Is it artificial intelligence?

Yeah, because the the end consumers, the participants who are ultimately here to serve, help educate them, help them save and achieve their best outcomes. They're they're looking for more.

The plan sponsors are looking for options that best meet their demographic of employees. and and those demographics of employees are are vast. We serve everybody, we serve all Americans.

Um, so the sponsors are looking for more, they're looking for products to meet the needs of their their employees, and they're looking for them at low cost. Puts a lot of pressure on the record keepers, right? Like they have to be operationally efficient. The margins are tightening all the time. Um, and they have to be able to serve their sponsors, the participants, work with the advisors.

They have to offer multiple products, multiple services, Omni channel experience. So, you know, they really need technologies and platforms that can integrate all of this and keep it cohesive and and very intuitive.

Yeah, so it's definitely not when I was, we were joking beforehand that, you know, when I came in the retirement industry, we did everything on the team, we processed transactions, we answered phone calls, everything. It it's not and I had hair. But we it's not the same. It's really an evolution. It's it's a changing world and I guess my next question is, with that in mind, how do you as an organization and you in particular remain nimble

and agile, uh, to be on your toes because, you know, you're getting legislative changes, regulatory changes, technology changes. That's got to keep you your make your head spin in some ways.

It it does. And you know, it's been very challenging. Um legacy technology has made things very challenging because as we've evolved, it's not just keeping the core transaction system in the book of record compliant with the regulations, it's leading that digital experience so that that the participants can truly take advantage of these legislations that are there to serve them and to drive them to better outcomes.

So modernizing the technology and consolidating platforms is the key to being able to stay agile, introduce um automation, AI efficiencies, and really be able to keep up with the regs in the way that we want to.

I I would imagine you do a lot of reading.

I I mean you got to be, but maybe you read it, do you read it on your phone? Do you read it in an email? How do you how do you personally, I'm just curious, how do you consume information because you you got all these things coming at you. You got to you got to be at the tip of at the tip of your fingertip, you have to have the information.

Yeah, I mean, it is nonstop for sure. Um, we, you know, here at FIS, we try to get out into the industry forums as much as possible. I think networking with our peers and other leaders and experts across the industry is a great way to stay informed. Um but yeah, I mean if I have 10 minutes, I can go on LinkedIn and I'm consumed and maybe even overwhelmed that overwhelmed at times with just great insights, information, thoughts, things that are happening, um that maybe aren't going well.

Learning from from some of those failures and mistakes is often uh the most insightful. So lots on the phone, lots on the computer and lots in person.

Yeah, you're going to have to get some meta glasses I think or whatever the glasses are called and it'll just be like shooting it into your brain.

Press the button and it just goes in, right?

That would be, yeah, that would be ideal.

Yeah, uh, so let me ask you about the the evolution of the investment lineup. Um, you know, when when I think for the most part it was target day funds, uh, in, you know, the core investment lineup, maybe self-director of brokerage, now manage accounts, but I I have to think that you have seen this explosion of investment products that you need to consider building an architecture around.

Yeah, so I I think, you know, first and foremost, what I would say is those investment lineups, the target dates, the managed accounts. I think we're still focused on those, but we're really looking at optimizing and getting the value that those investment vehicles have to offer. Um, it goes back to the participant and being able to really personalize their situation and help guide them to the best decisions possible.

The aggregation of data, outside accounts, other products and services that they have, so that they know where to put their next dollar and their money. And then also just plainly, um educating them on what what is a managed account? What is a target date fund? So I think there's a lot that is still going on in that space.

I think we've made a lot of progress. I think we have a little bit more ways to go so that participants get into their workplace site and they're like, oh, this makes so much sense. I'm going to, I'm going to use this target date but in this manage account option because I'm going to get X percent increase, for example. Um so I think we're making good traction there.

But to your point, that is not enough, right? Because the next things are coming. CITs are being approved for retirement plans, alternative investments are available, and these types of investment vehicles require different trading, different liquidity structures, different education, different participant experiences.

So always um trying to optimize what we have but prepare for the future. And I think a key to that is our partnership strategies, making sure we're not trying to do everything on our own, right? This is a big industry. There's a tremendous amount of experts. So we're we're very focused on who are the best that we can partner with and with our modern technology build those integrations so that everything is seamless and it comes together in the ecosystem.

And you can't be, uh, to your point, you can't be biased towards one type of product. You know, you can't be all in for example in CTs when there are mutual funds, there are variable annuities, right? I mean, you have to be in some ways, this is not a condescending term, but you have to be all things to all people. You really have to be able to partner with everybody.

That that is our goal as a technology provider, right? We're not the advisor, um we're not the asset manager. We trust, we select partners and evaluate partners that we think are like you mentioned earlier, truly here to serve the the needs of the participants, the outcomes of the participants, um help our record keepers with efficiency. We we just talked about a lot of things that we have to do, but we can't drive price up, like price has to come down.

So, yeah, we we look to find partnerships, um and we rely on those partnerships for the expertise that they bring to the table and to the participants.

Yeah, I would imagine that in terms of the the language that is being used to code, you no longer are you still using you don't still use Cobol. I grew up using Cobol. That's how old I am. I mean, there's Java, there's all these sequel, right? I mean, so the the evolution has also occurred there in terms of the underlying programming.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm I'm delighted that you asked that because we are launching our Java platform, AWS Cloud hosted. um like right at this moment it's happening. So, uh be on the lookout for more details on that press release, but it's it's really an exciting time.

Yeah, uh, I'm dating myself. But I look, I still could be dangerous if you if you need a business analyst, I could probably look at some coball for you.

We do. We need we need all the all the hands.

Yeah. Uh, let me ask you about artificial intelligence because this is a topic that I think is really hit every industry, you know, from even the military and defense to to retirement. Where where are you seeing the deployment of artificial intelligence? Is it the writing of the Java code or the or the code? Is it operational efficiencies? Where where or is it like chatbots or all the above? Where are you seeing it being deployed?

It's everywhere. Um, so, you know, we think about just even personally, we're all thinking about using AI in our personal lives. Um, I just planned my daughter's graduation party, so I used, you know, my chatbot to help me organize and stay on track. And as I sit here day-to-day and do my my work and go through my emails and organize my meetings and my notes and my actions, Co-pilot is a great tool to to make me more efficient. So we see it

there in the simplest forms. We absolutely are leveraging it in our development practices with coding, testing, writing requirements. We are um also focusing on how do we service our clients better? When they call into our support centers, how do we help our analysts use AI to sift through all the all the fixes, all the informations, the resolutions, the knowledge bases.

And then absolutely looking to enable and fuel our products with better data and AI enablement. So when we think about AI, we we think a lot about how can we harness the power of all the data that we have, so we can serve up those those insights and actions. Sometimes to our partners, because partners already have great uh models and methods. So can we help them make their tools better? But in our participant experience, for example, participants, they they are on this journey, right?

When they come into the workplace, they might have a student loan. They need to think about emergency savings, they're buying homes. Um, they they are contributing to their 401K and their HSA. So how can we guide them through those journeys with insights, actions, other questions they might want to be asking. Um so we're we're looking at AI in all those ways.