Edward Jones Builds AI-Powered Retirement Plan Tool
Edward Jones has partnered with Aboon, an AI-driven third-party administrator, and Retirement Plan Advisory Group (part of Great Gray Group) to develop an end-to-end retirement plan management tool. The firm hopes the new technology will help its advisors better serve business owners and their employees.
On the 401(k) side, Edward Jones currently has about $50 billion in assets across about 10 record keepers.
“Given our strong footprint in our communities, our advisors are working with local business owners every single day,” said Katherine Roy, principal, workplace and retirement solutions at Edward Jones. “If we’re in the local communities, many of the business owners that we could be serving to expand access to retirement plans often either don’t have a plan today or have a smaller workforce. We want to be able to create those opportunities for advisors and really pull that through the lifecycle.”
The firm has some 20,000 advisors in the U.S. and Canada, about two-thirds of whom in the U.S. have a group retirement plan client, Roy said.
The technology platform, which will be integrated into Edward Jones’ advisor workstation, will cover the entire workplace retirement plan lifecycle, from prospecting to plan servicing. Edward Jones is currently in beta with a group of advisors for the platform’s prospecting module, who are stress-testing the experience and the data. That module is expected to go live to the broader network early next year, Roy said. The new platform will be record keeper- and TPA-agnostic.
“It’s really taking that complexity of our business that sits across these different record keepers and TPAs and creating an integrated, streamlined, tailored to our advisors and how they work with business owners, creating that end-to-end experience that we are really excited about, and we think is really a differentiator in the market.
While Edward Jones already partners with Aboon as a digital TPA, this will expand that partnership to include Aboon helping with prospecting and plan match, and supporting additional TPAs on the platform.
“RPMC will leverage Aboon Workplace, an AI-native platform that lets advisors find and win retirement plans all in one place,” said Nick Gavronsky, Aboon CEO and co-founder, in a statement. “Together, we’re creating a simpler, more streamlined experience for all advisors, whether they’re launching or scaling their retirement plan business.”
About a year ago, Aboon announced it raised $17.5 million in seed funding, with Edward Jones Ventures, the firm’s corporate venture capital arm, participating in that round.
RPAG will provide the benchmarking, fee comparisons and ongoing management of the retirement plans.
Edward Jones advisors serve over 263,000 workplace retirement plans with nearly $107 billion in assets under care and more than 1.3 million plan participants.
