"[TPAs], brokers, and benefits technology vendors are increasingly offering [AI] tools that can generate [SPDs], plan summaries, FAQs, and participant communications almost instantaneously. While these tools promise efficiency and reduced administrative burden, plan sponsors should proceed cautiously. Under ERISA, the plan administrator is responsible for maintaining compliant plan documentation and properly distributing required disclosures, including the obligation to furnish paper copies of plan documents upon a participant’s request." MORE >>
"GAI holds promise to improve efficiency and professional services in tax practice. However, ethical obligations of competence, diligence, and confidentiality remain unchanged. By implementing robust use-management strategies and maintaining human supervision, tax professionals can harness AI's benefits while safeguarding reliability and public trust. As tax practitioners integrate GAI into their workflows, it is crucial to recognize that technology serves as a powerful tool, not a substitute for professional judgment. AI can streamline routine tasks, enhance research, and provide valuable insights, but final decisions must always rest with qualified professionals who understand the complexities of tax law and ethical standards. Practitioners must remain vigilant in reviewing what is produced by AI, validating its factual assertions and citations, and handling sensitive client data safely and securely in accordance with both federal and state regulations." MORE >>
"Employer enthusiasm for artificial intelligence is outpacing employee willingness to use the technology as a tool as part of their benefits programs.... 83% of employers surveyed were interested in using AI to help workers better understand their benefits. Only 58% of employees surveyed said they would use AI for that purpose, and just 24% said they were currently doing so." MORE >>
"The rapid advancement of AI creates new fiduciary, operational, and governance risks for pension systems. Outright bans are not realistic. Developing a dynamic, principle-based AI governance is essential to protecting beneficiaries' data, while safely streamlining efficiencies and enhancing returns." MORE >>
"[PwC estimated] that medical costs will go up by 9% in the employer market next year, and by 8.5% in the individual market. One of the largest drivers is providers' use of AI-enabled software and scribes that more thoroughly document the care that's delivered.... PwC said the financial impact isn't so much due to people using more medical services as 'changes in coded severity, case mix and paid amount per claim.' " MORE >>
"Health plans are projecting the highest medical cost trend in nearly two decades, with commercial healthcare cost trend expected to rise to 9% in 2027.... [I]nflators include provider adoption of AI-enabled revenue optimization tools, growing provider reimbursement pressure, rising pharmacy spending, sustained growth in behavioral health utilization, and escalating out-of-network payment disputes under the No Surprises Act. Without macro health cost deflators, payers and employers face mounting pressure to act." MORE >>
"The classic cost-disease cure is to 'productize' what used to be a service by substituting scalable goods. But in health care, the opportunity lies not in replacing services with goods but in raising productivity across labor-intensive workflows." MORE >>
"Getting to this 'properly structured and regulated' system of converting savings to income does require a bit of Zigging Down the Zag (Dr. Seuss), especially when we are trying to do it in a system designed to simply accumulate savings.... Deconstructing things like CITs, target date funds and annuities and reconfiguring them -- within regulatory bonds, of course -- to try to effectively pull off the policy initiatives is a fascinating (and workable) task, which will serve us well going forward. These sorts of efforts are well beyond the ken of existing AI systems." MORE >>
"Artificial intelligence is often framed as an emerging capability. For organizations focused on long-term growth, it is increasingly becoming part of the operating model.... Work that used to take hours each month has been reduced to minutes. Not through a single tool, but through connected automations that remove friction at each step." MORE >>
"67% of employers view voluntary benefits as a vital part of their financial wellbeing strategy. 63% of businesses have operationalized AI within parts of their operations, a significant jump from 45% in 2025. 48% of employers now cover infertility services or fertility treatments. 32% of employers are now 'carving out' their pharmacy benefits to a separate Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM), up by 13 points from 2024." MORE >>
"While about 84% of respondents to a recently released ACA Group survey reported using AI, they also reported that 'active AI use' occurred, on average, in only two of 20 compliance and operations sub-functions. Only 18% of firms that responded said they used AI in compliance tasks, compared with 5% in operations." MORE >>
"Cutting-edge technologies like Generative AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) can transform this data into actionable insights, empowering more informed decision-making and uncovering tradeable opportunities. AI Feature Arms Race is a dead end as AI capabilities are commoditizing.... Selection of the AI platform is becoming a standalone expertise. Start with processes that allow you to get meaningful productivity or other benefits upfront and allow you to build literacy among your team as users. Be realistic about the time frames needed to implement." MORE >>
"In the document-heavy world of retirement and benefits plans, attorneys tell of how AI has changed -- some for the better, some for the worse, some to be determined -- the way some legal work is done. Legal experts say plan sponsors can best use the technology through AI legal review, such as reviewing documents, which allows plan sponsors to be more informed when they meet with counsel. They caution, however, that they could violate their fiduciary duties by over-relying on the technology." MORE >>
"[N]early half (47%) of Americans now feel more comfortable using AI for personal finance purposes compared to a year ago. Individuals are increasingly turning to AI for retirement planning recommendations (56%), debt consolidation advice (58%), and budgeting assistance (54%).... 62% of respondents still value human input, particularly for more significant financial decisions such as investing, while 61% said they would prefer using AI alongside human financial advice rather than replacing it entirely." MORE >>
"The most important present-tense consequence therefore isn't hypothetical automation sometime down the road. It's that fiduciaries are already dealing with AI-assisted operations, whether or not they label them that way.... That immediately broadens the due-diligence agenda for single-employer plans.... Cybersecurity is the second immediate effect, and it may become the most expensive one.... Multiple-employer arrangements, especially pooled employer plans, or PEPs, are likely to experience AI differently because the cited legal guidance is focused on centralized provider structures." MORE >>
"[This article] examines the unsettled and contested landscape of AI regulation ... It explains how the growing use of AI in group health plans intersects with existing federal laws ... particularly HIPAA ... The discussion highlights unresolved questions about whether training AI on claims data qualifies as permissible healthcare operations and ... further analyzes mental health parity compliance ... The rise of AI and its application to the maintenance and operation of group health plans raises the fiduciary bar exponentially higher." MORE >>
"ERISA plan fiduciaries remain fully responsible for ensuring that AI is used prudently, loyally, and solely in the interest of plan participants, even when AI is deployed by third-party service providers. Because AI systems function as opaque 'black boxes,' fiduciaries face challenges in monitoring their use. Fiduciaries can mitigate risk through reviewing vendor AI policies, requesting audits, requiring compliance with emerging standards ... and negotiating robust AI-specific contract and request for proposal terms addressing transparency, bias, cybersecurity, compliance, and accountability." MORE >>
"The gray areas are real. Who’s liable if an AI tool produces inaccurate information? How transparent should vendors be about their use of AI? What happens when a hallucination—AI-speak for a confident but wrong answer—slips into investment research or fee comparisons?" MORE >>
"Plaintiff's lawyers are using AI tools to help identify plans covered by [ERISA] to [find] outliers and anomalies and target employers with lawsuits over their handling of investment choices and forfeiture funds ... [D]efense attorneys are turning to AI for assistance with benchmarking and comparing fees and performance across plans." MORE >>
"Most conversations about AI in benefits administration cover the visible moments: the chat window, the enrollment recommendation, the dashboard that answers a question in plain English. That’s not wrong. But it’s profoundly incomplete." MORE >>
"While Copilot Health's entry into this rapidly evolving field is notable, the legal issues it raises are myriad and similar to those implicated by other similar products.... Legal professionals advising health systems, insurers, or technology vendors should begin assessing the impact of tools like Copilot Health on how data is shared with such tools and how patient care will change over time as a result." MORE >>
"Plaintiff's lawyers are using AI tools to help identify plans covered by [ERISA] to identify outliers and anomalies and target employers with lawsuits over their handling of investment choices and forfeiture funds, while defense attorneys are turning to AI for assistance with benchmarking and comparing fees and performance across plans. The nascent technology isn't without risks, with benefits attorneys pointing to hallucinations and the potential for lawsuits down the road if AI is used to second-guess fiduciaries." MORE >>
"Many providers and firms are still stuck in silos, which inhibits their ability to fully leverage the new opportunities.... Convergence is the driving force bringing in wealth advisors, their broker/dealers and the asset managers that serve them. Private equity is fueling the growth of wealth by RPA aggregators, with some pushing RIAs to leverage DC plans to grow." MORE >>
"[The] order granted broad discovery into the insurer's AI-driven claims processes. This ruling is an important indicator that litigation challenging AI-based health insurer coverage denials is gaining traction and that the inner workings of these algorithmic tools may be subject to court-ordered disclosure." [Estate of Lokken v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc., No. 23-3514 (D. Minn. Mar. 9, 2026)] MORE >>
"Last year, legislatures in Arizona, Maryland, Nebraska, and Texas enacted bills to address AI use in health insurance determinations.... [T]his post summarizes legislation under consideration in the first quarter of 2026 that governs health insurers' use of AI in determinations such as prior authorization and utilization review." MORE >>
