Speaking at a Financial Services Council (FSC) panel session on digital advice, Brennan discussed how Aware Super is implementing digital advice.
The FSC’s report, The Role and Value of Digital Advice in Australia, draws on analysis by CoreData and Borromean Consulting, exploring the evolution of digital financial advice through industry interviews and national consumer research.
This found digital advice users were 2 – 2.5 times more likely to seek retirement advice over the next three years compared to non-users.
Commenting on her experience at Aware, Brennan said: “Members cannot always access comprehensive advice, only around 5 per cent of our members can do so. So how are we going to reach the other 95 per cent? We have 100 advisers and they are always booked out.
“Our bold ambition is we want to democratise advice, digital advice is important to that and we are using data and AI to build solutions.”
She said Aware Super had found its members who accessed digital advice were 1.6 times more likely to make voluntary contributions than those who did not.
Aware Super currently has two offerings – My Retirement Planner and My Retirement Manager – the latter of which was launched in February and follows members into retirement.
“We are working, testing, building and piloting it on behalf of our members,” she said.
She also discussed how her own learnings in the technology space had helped her understanding of progress and future developments.
Referencing a recent trip to the US, she said the pace of progress with AI is significantly ahead of where it was last year. Aware Super was one of several super funds which visited the US as part of a delegation to understand offshore investment opportunities. This included meeting with government and economic leaders as well as sessions on AI and technology.
“We went to the US and met companies such as Google and Anthropic and compared to where they had been last year, they have moved fast, the opportunity and momentum is so significant. This move is going to happen in months not years, it’s happening fast,” she said.
“It’s not about episodic moments, the tech will enable us to join up the dots so it feels more like a constant, an ongoing journey for members.”
