How AI can help global employees finally understand and act on their retirement plans
For most people, retirement plan documents are a black hole. Plan participants receive dense quarterly statements, plan summaries, fee disclosures, and regulatory notices packed with legal language, industry jargon, and multi-page tables. In theory, these documents provide transparency. In practice, they overwhelm.
If we’re being honest, very few employees read them. And fewer still fully understand them. Yet buried inside all that disclosure bloat is exactly the information employees care most about: how their plan is performing, what changes affect them, and whether they’re on track for retirement. The unfortunate reality is that the data is there, but locked behind barriers of complexity that most people don’t have time or expertise to sort through.
That’s where artificial intelligence can make a real difference. AI isn’t about replacing required disclosures. It’s about making them useful. With the right technology, AI can extract what matters most, summarize complex plan documents in simple language, highlight changes that affect participants, and even offer personalized recommendations, all instantly. And when you extend this vision to global retirement plans, where cross-border complexity multiplies, the need for intelligent summarization becomes even more urgent.
Retirement disclosures serve an important regulatory purpose. They ensure transparency, protect plan participants, and provide documentation for compliance. But they are written for regulators, not for employees. Quarterly plan statements include account balances, contribution details, investment returns, and fees, but they’re often laid out in ways that make it difficult for the average participant to extract key takeaways.
Fee disclosures might run dozens of pages, full of legal disclaimers and indirect cost explanations that require significant financial literacy to decipher. Summary plan descriptions, meant to be the plain-language guide for retirement plan participants, often feel anything but plain. They contain exhaustive legal detail about eligibility, vesting schedules, investment options, and withdrawal rules, but little actionable guidance on what participants should do next.
Even highly motivated employees often walk away from these documents frustrated, confused, or disengaged. For many, retirement planning feels like one more task they’re not qualified to handle. So they delay action. They leave money on the table. And they miss opportunities to optimize their long-term financial well-being.
The good news is that this is not a data problem - it’s an interpretation problem. All the necessary information exists inside these plan documents and statements. AI’s role is to serve as a translator, cutting through the complexity to surface what truly matters to each employee.
An AI-powered system can scan an individual’s plan disclosures and instantly answer the questions participants actually have. Am I on track for retirement? Has anything changed in my investment lineup? How much am I paying in fees compared to last year? Are my contribution levels optimized for my income? Has my employer updated the matching policy?
Rather than forcing employees to hunt for these answers, AI can proactively surface them. Instead of dumping 20 pages of disclosure into a participant’s inbox, a smart system can deliver a personalized two-minute summary, written in plain language, highlighting key points specific to that participant’s situation.
Beyond summarization, AI can also provide dynamic recommendations. If an employee is contributing below the employer match threshold, the system can suggest increasing contributions. If new investment options become available that better align with their risk profile or retirement timeline, AI can flag them. If recent plan changes impact withdrawal rules or eligibility, participants can be notified proactively.
The value isn’t just convenience - it’s engagement. When participants actually understand their retirement plan, they engage with it. They make better decisions, contribute more, and build stronger financial futures.
For global employers, the challenge becomes even more complicated. Employees working across borders face not only complex plan documentation, but multiple regulatory regimes, currencies, tax treatments, and eligibility standards. A U.S. participant might receive 401(k) disclosures, while a colleague in Singapore reviews CPF statements, and another in the UK navigates auto-enrollment letters. The underlying questions are often the same, but the formats, rules, and language differ dramatically.
AI’s ability to parse and normalize data from multiple systems makes it uniquely suited to simplify this cross-border complexity. It can translate statements into employees’ preferred languages, adjust for country-specific tax rules, and present a unified view of an employee’s global retirement savings, even when assets are spread across multiple plans.
For globally mobile employees who relocate during their careers, AI can track benefits accrued across borders, highlight potential gaps, and help them understand how their retirement picture fits together as a whole. Without AI, stitching together this kind of global view would require extensive manual effort and expert financial advice, resources most employees simply don’t have access to.
While the primary advantage of AI-powered retirement plan interpretation is employee empowerment, there’s a significant compliance benefit for employers as well. Regulations require that employees be provided with clear, timely, and accurate disclosures. But just providing the documentation isn’t enough if employees can’t reasonably understand it.
An AI-powered summary system strengthens plan fiduciary processes by demonstrating that employers are actively supporting plan participants in understanding their options. When participants are better informed, the risk of complaints, litigation, or regulatory scrutiny declines. AI doesn’t replace compliance - it enhances it, by making transparency truly meaningful.
At its core, this is about changing how employees feel about retirement planning. The typical retirement experience is passive and intimidating. People receive statements they don’t fully understand, and over time disengage entirely from long-term planning.
AI-powered summaries flip that experience. Suddenly, employees are equipped with clear answers to questions they didn’t even know how to ask. They feel informed. They feel capable. And that sense of confidence drives higher participation, stronger retention, and deeper loyalty to employers who invest in their long-term well-being.
The relationship between employee and employer is no longer just transactional; it’s partnership-oriented. Retirement plans move from obscure HR obligations to trusted financial tools that employees actively use, value, and appreciate.
At Redii, we see retirement plan complexity not as an inevitable burden, but as an opportunity to improve how employees engage with their financial futures. Our platform is designed from the ground up to support global employers who want to offer portable, scalable retirement solutions that employees truly understand, no matter where they live or work.
We are building AI directly into the retirement experience, helping participants translate lengthy disclosures into digestible summaries, personalized recommendations, and real clarity. Whether employees are contributing to retirement plans in a single country or spread across multiple jurisdictions, Redii makes global retirement data actionable, accessible, and aligned with long-term financial goals.
If your company is ready to move beyond simply offering retirement benefits and toward actually helping employees understand and optimize them, contact Redii today. The data is already there. AI can make it meaningful.
Exploring how the SECURE 2.0 Act’s provisions are reshaping retirement savings strategies for employers and employees alike.
Ensure your employees have flexible, cross-border retirement solutions for an evolving global workforce.
