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Empower outlines participant engagement gains and AI safeguards in annual MDC update
Summary
Empower told the PERS defined contribution committee the Mississippi Deferred Compensation Plan had strong participant engagement — thousands of advisor meetings, increased enrollments and positive Net Promoter Scores — and described an innovation lab, human-in-the-loop AI governance and fraud-detection tools the firm is deploying.
Empower representatives gave the committee a fiscal-year review of services for the Mississippi Deferred Compensation (MDC) plan and described technology investments intended to improve participant service and account security.
Lede: Empower reported the MDC plan had roughly $2.3 billion in assets and presented metrics showing robust adviser engagement and measurable advisor-driven outcomes; it also walked trustees through its approach to artificial intelligence and security for the plan’s record-keeping system.
Nut graf: Rich Massengill, director of participant engagement at Empower, told trustees the firm completed about 4,385 advisor meetings and interacted with about 16,985 participants over the fiscal year, producing roughly 1,900 new enrollments and measurable increases in deferral rates and account diversifications. Empower emphasized that advice, delivered through in‑field advisers and the “my total retirement” managed-account service, produces measurable participant actions.
What Empower told trustees: Empower said it had launched an "innovation lab" in January 2024 to test AI solutions safely and that a multidisciplinary committee (compliance, legal, CIO, chief security officer) reviews AI deployments. The vendor said it operates a human-in-the-loop approach for customer-facing AI and described use cases including a natural-language IVR that reduces pre-authentication time, advanced fraud detection (voice pin-drop), live call assessment and agent coaching, a 24/7 chatbot with next-best-action capabilities, and website/mobile UX relaunches.
Representative quotes: "We're using artificial intelligence in the most safe way possible," Empower staff stated, and emphasized that any deployment will pass a risk assessment before broad rollout.
Why it matters: PERS trustees said AI raises governance and security questions. Empower told the committee its record-keeping is rules-based and server-hosted with penetration testing and an account‑replacement guarantee if an account is compromised.
What’s next: Empower will continue to roll out AI pilots through its innovation lab, advance participant website updates and coordinate with PERS staff on program-level priorities including potential Roth add-ins and auto-enrollment concepts for future legislative consideration.
