AI benefits guidance faces trust hurdle, not tech gap

By October 2026, the evidence on benefits engagement had shifted from whether digital guidance existed to whether employees trusted it enough to use it. Prudential’s 2026 Benefits & Beyond study found that “83% of employers want to use artificial intelligence for benefits guidance, but only 58% of employees say they would actually use it,” and Scott Roth said the gap was “less a technology adoption challenge and more a trust challenge,” a finding that directly tied utilization gains to communication quality rather than tool availability alone. Even so, the same research suggested that trust could be built: “Sixty-five percent of employees say they are comfortable letting employers manage their personal data for benefits purposes,” and Roth emphasized that “personalization and trust need to go hand in hand.”

The same Prudential research showed why October’s utilization debate centered on communication and confidence: “Just 24% of employees currently use AI for benefits guidance, despite the technology's widespread availability,” while “Privacy and security dominate employee concerns, cited by 52% of workers,” ahead of “accuracy and reliability worries (49%).” Another “40% of those who have concerns about AI in the benefits space” pointed specifically to the risk of sharing personally identifiable information, underscoring that engagement improves only when employers explain data use clearly enough to overcome hesitation.

The case for plain-language, repeated benefits communication starts with the barriers employees themselves report: HR Morning cited a BusinessSolver study finding 86% of employees are confused about benefits, with uncertainty spanning “costs, options, value, usage and access,” while a Voya Financial survey found about 90% usually pick the same plan as the year before because they “don’t have to think too much about the whole process.” That is why employers and brokers are shifting toward communication that builds knowledge over time, answers practical questions directly, and reduces the effort required to act.

Insurance Business reported that Lincoln Financial’s Kerry Brooks now urges brokers to use “delivery channel variety,” combining email, digital benefit portals, and printed materials because “a single-channel approach will consistently miss” workers, and an employee survey of 1,130 benefits-eligible workers found approximately 50% are unaware of the voluntary benefits available to them. The payoff from clearer framing is measurable: EBRI found that when employees saw “plain-language descriptions of what each supplemental health product covers and how it pays out,” interest rose to 71% for accident insurance, 76% for critical illness coverage, and 63% for hospital indemnity insurance.

Employers are reworking benefits strategy because a once-a-year enrollment push no longer matches how workers actually encounter need. In Kindbody’s case study, The RealReal said benefits go unused when employees are unsure what exists, whether they qualify, or how to access care, a problem that is “especially true” for complex offerings; the company also ties engagement to demographics, with “approximately 60 to 65 percent women, with more than half between the ages of 30 and 37,” a life stage “closely tied to family-building needs,” which makes static annual messaging too blunt for a changing workforce.

Brokers and employers are also moving beyond the old model because cost and administrative complexity have outgrown paper-era enrollment workflows. Lucy Melvin said federal benefits are “very complex over 200 FB plans,” alongside “TSB withdrawal” rules and the need to “provide documentation for dependent… to make sure that someone's eligible,” calling it “a lot of complexity,” while warning that trying to fit this into existing systems is a risky retrofit that will “not really meet the needs” and leaves too much room for expensive mistakes.