Candidly Expands Employer-Sponsored Benefits Suite

Candidly announced today the debut of “benefits-aware” financial guidance for employees, an expansion of the firm’s employer-sponsored benefits suite.

Employees leverage the guidance through Cait, Candidly’s conversational artificial intelligence assistant tool. Cait draws on employee data, including payroll, benefits enrollment materials, the design of an employer’s benefits program and its plan design, based on plan documents. Employees can also connect their own financial accounts, such as for credit cards and student loans.

The enhanced tool “gives employees holistic guidance built around [their own] finances [and], importantly, in the context of the benefits that their employer already provides,” says Laurel Taylor, Candidly’s founder and CEO.

With the latest update, Cait considers an “employee’s full financial picture,” according to Candidly’s announcement. Cait’s guidance adapts as an employee’s financial circumstances change. 

Taylor says Cait now can help employees target four areas: understanding benefits, navigating education costs, managing daily finances and building savings for the future.

“Our view is that the plan sponsor doesn’t necessarily need to offer more benefits, but they do need to offer [an] interconnected” package, Taylor says.

According to the announcement, the enhanced product is intended to support “greater awareness and actionability” of existing benefits, reduce the routine benefits questions employers field, and deliver personalized financial guidance and planning tools. Employees can leverage guidance on retirement planning, employer stock plans, 529 plans, 530(a) Trump Accounts and debt management.

“The overall wealth management industry is primarily serving [high-net-worth individuals], but [Candidly] believes that wealth isn’t just for the wealthy,” Taylor says. “Taking advantage of the benefits [an] employer [already] offers is a critical part of the financial constitution within a household.”