Personalization: The Industry Wants It. The Infrastructure Still Needs Work.
"Personalization" has graduated from marketing language to business imperative. Everywhere we went, the conversation was about creating more relevant experiences for participants, including:
- Tailored messaging
- Individualized guidance
- Dynamic investment support
- Communication that reflects life stage, not just age
That’s a real shift, but so is the operational reality behind it. Most firms don’t struggle with the concept of personalization, but they struggle with execution.
Knowing when a participant has become more engaged, identifying who may need help, connecting plan-level activity to broader financial needs, and getting the right outreach in front of the right person at the right time still requires more coordination than it should. The opportunity is to build systems that make personalized engagement timely, repeatable, and scalable, without forcing advisors and their teams to search across platforms just to determine who to call.
Retirement-to-Wealth: Still the Biggest Growth Opportunity in the Room
If there was one theme that clearly stood out, it was the convergence of retirement and wealth.
Newsflash: This is not a new concept. We were both in the business back in the late 1900s, and even then, advisors understood the value of working with 401(k) plans, both to help more people and as a path to broader wealth relationships over time. The difference now is that technology is making it much easier and more profitable to do at scale, including for emerging and sub-mass affluent households.
Today, the retirement plan is being viewed less as the endpoint and more as the front door to a broader client relationship.
The challenge is building the infrastructure and repeatable process to capture that opportunity before someone else does. The participant journey is often fragmented. Data lives in one place, engagement happens in another, and success often depends on spotting the right signal in time to act.
The firms best positioned for growth will be able to turn retirement plan engagement into relationship continuity, identify intent earlier, surface opportunities faster, and help advisors connect plan participation to broader wealth needs before the window closes.
AI: Helpful, Practical, but Not a Substitute for Connection
AI was a major topic, but the most useful conversations were the least dramatic. This wasn’t about robots replacing retirement advice. It was about tools that help teams move faster, communicate better, and spend less time on repetitive tasks.
Many advisors are already using AI to improve prospecting, streamline service, generate communications, and create internal efficiencies. In a business where capacity is often a constraint, that kind of support matters.
AI’s greatest value right now is making action easier, not deciding what matters. It can draft a message, summarize a meeting, or flag patterns. What it can’t do is create trust, resolve household complexity from disconnected systems, or consistently move a participant from passive account holder to engaged advice client.
Artificial Intelligence is here to stay, but we think another AI, Actionable Intelligence, matters more. Firms still need a more complete view of participant behavior and a cleaner way to turn signals into outreach. AI can amplify that process, but it can’t replace the need for connected data and coordinated engagement.
Policy: The Rules Are Still Evolving
As we heard in the legislative and regulatory session, change continues to shape the retirement landscape in meaningful ways.
For advisors, plan sponsors, and providers, legislation and regulation are shaping more than compliance. They are influencing plan design, fiduciary decision-making, participant engagement, and long-term growth strategies.
Three areas felt especially important to us:
- Efforts to reduce plaintiff litigation risk for plan sponsors and advisors
- Continued momentum around democratizing access to alternative investments
- Policy proposals aimed at expanding workplace savings access
Firms need to be ready for new opportunities to help clients strengthen governance, evaluate evolving investment approaches, and reach more workers through the workplace retirement system. Those paying attention now will be better positioned to adapt their advisory strategies as the landscape continues to change
Data: The Most Valuable Asset Most Firms Aren’t Fully Using
Nearly every conversation about growth came back to data. Not in the abstract, but in the practical sense: who has it, who can access it, who can interpret it, and whether anyone can act on it in time.
When done well, participant data, engagement data, financial wellness data, and plan data can power better segmentation, stronger retention, more relevant communication, and a clearer path from plan participant to advice relationship. Done poorly, it creates noise.
Firms have more data than ever, but not always more visibility. More systems, but not always more coordination. More signals, but not always a next step. The next phase of growth will come from connecting the information firms already have and embedding it into advisor workflows in ways that drive timely action instead of post-event analysis.
“We have the data” is not a growth strategy. We need more collaboration across the ecosystem, and we need to do it responsibly. It’s our duty to those we serve.
What Felt Different This Year
This year, there was a stronger focus on execution. Firms are looking more closely at how to:
- Activate participant relationships
- Create continuity between retirement and wealth
- Equip advisors with better signals
- Operationalize engagement more efficiently
There's also a growing recognition that strategic partnerships can help firms focus on where they add the most value.
The key takeaway: success now depends on building the connected structure that turns vision into reality.
At Broadridge, we work with firms across the retirement ecosystem to help simplify complexity, strengthen engagement, and create more coordinated experiences for participants and advisors. If your team is focused on these challenges, reach out using the form below to start a conversation.
