“Alexa, am I saving enough for retirement?”
Okay, Amazon’s digital voice assistant (DVA) might not be financially savvy enough to analyze a participants’ 401k… at least not yet. But Alexa is now helping retirement savers quickly and easily track their accounts.
With a simple voice command—“Alexa, ask Prudential Retirement for my account balance.”—Prudential’s defined contribution, defined benefit cash balance and non-qualified retirement plan account holders can keep tabs on their savings progress. Customers who have Alexa can also ask about their rates of return and outstanding loans.
According to Prudential, setup is a breeze. Retirement savers just need a registered account on the Prudential Retirement website and to enable the Alexa skill as they would any other on the Alexa app.
Fidelity, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and Capital One have also made efforts to engage customers on Amazon’s voice-powered platform.
According to an Accenture survey of 21,000 online consumers in 19 countries, “year-on-year growth in ownership of stand-alone DVA devices is greater than 50 percent in all countries surveyed.”
Furthermore, “If stated purchase plans hold, DVA device ownership will reach one-third of the online population in China, India, the US, Brazil and Mexico by the end of 2018.”
If embedded DVA devices (e.g., iPhones with Siri, etc.) are added to the count, device ownership is even greater.
In its unveiling of the new service, Prudential noted that research by Adobe Digital Insights found 51 percent of consumers in America currently use a voice assistant of some sort and Alexa is leading the pack.
Prudential assures its customers that their information is safely stored on secured servers, and Amazon does not have access to usernames and passwords plan participants use to log in to Prudential’s website.