TIAA-CREF
TIAA (Teachers’ Insurance and Annuities Association of America) is a leading provider of financial services in academic, research, healthcare, cultural and government sectors and a Fortune 500 financial services organization. Founded in 1918 by Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Education, TIAA today serves more than 5 million active and retired employees who attend more than 15,000 educational institutions, and has tutoring in more than 50 countries. We manage $1.3 trillion in assets. TIAA is also the owner and operator of Nuveen, TIAA’s investment management arm. Nuveen is a leader in socially responsible environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) investing.
In support of its mission to provide customers with a lifetime income and increase their retirement savings, TIAA has created a comprehensive portfolio of customer service and technology organizations (CS&T) under the leadership of TIAA CEO Susunda Brown Duckett. Embark on a digital, data and AI transformation. Sastry Durvasura is TIAA’s Chief Information and Client Services Officer, taking office in February 2022. He is responsible for leading the Global Technology and Client Services organization and is the executive director of the company. Also a member of the committee. In this capacity, he spearheads his TIAA transformation initiative, known internally as his CS&T 2.0. Prior to joining TIAA, Durvasula served as Global Chief Technology Officer and Digital Officer and Partner at McKinsey & Company. He is Chief Digital Officer and Chief Data and Analytics Officer (CDAO) at Marsh. During his 15-year tenure at American Express, he served as Global Head of Digital and Data Technologies and Chief Information Officer (CIO).
Mr. Durvasula reflects on his mission and TIAA’s vision as follows: “Our transformational journey is essential to achieving our mission in the face of America’s retirement crisis. Our vision is to provide a lifetime income for everyone through investments that build a better world.” He points out that his family is facing what he describes as a “retirement crisis.” He cites current data that his 40% of US households are projected to be short of funds in retirement. The average household is expected to face a deficit of over $100,000. Durvasula points out that the problem is even more acute for women and people of diverse backgrounds. After a woman stops working, she typically lives 30 years and retires with 30% less income. Retirement earnings are higher than for men, and 54% of black Americans don’t earn enough to retire.
A key focal point of the CS&T 2.0 initiative is the TIAA. digital first Organizations that rely heavily on data and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to build scale to serve their TIAA clients.of digital first The initiative is focused on delivering new digital experiences and customer journeys for business-to-business, business-to-business, business-to-business, and business-to-business customers.of Data and AI The initiative builds on enterprise data management, privacy and security, data quality and data governance, data stewardship, regulatory reporting, and new and innovative AI, including intelligent automation of client services and new pilots. Deploying /ML and Natural Language Processing (NLP) solutions. with generative AI.
“By combining the power of analytics with the other insights we use, we will be able to deliver retirement solutions, products, new business segments, advice, services and personalized experiences to institutional and individual customers,” said Durvasula. We will be able to provide it to.” commented. As an example, AI-powered client serviceThrough its partnership with Google AI, TIAA will reach millions of participants with several AI-powered use cases, including personalized client experiences, intelligent automation of back offices, and other key capabilities in financial services. You can revolutionize the way you serve clients to , advanced fraud protection. By applying natural language processing and AI, TIAA successfully launched conversational self-service, significantly improving customer satisfaction scores and increasing efficiency. “Our client service AI platform is driving next-generation experiences and intelligent automation of our operations,” said Duvasula. We aim to satisfy you.”
Another example of TIAA’s use of data, analytics and AI is supporting ESG investments through its wealth management arm, Nuveen. Nuveen’s Responsible Investment and Municipal Research teams use data and analytics to develop a proprietary Municipal ESG Scoring Framework that covers 92% of his holdings in the Bloomberg 3-15 Year Blended Municipal Index. created. Data also plays a key role in the company’s net zero carbon journey. “In line with this commitment, we have set out five-year interim targets, with an initial target for 2025 that aims to achieve a 15% to 25% carbon reduction in the general account corporate public debt portfolio,” Durvasula said. We will be sharing good news about this soon,” he said. And the direct commercial real estate portfolio he will be reduced by 15% to 20%. These ambitious goals give us an edge over the general accounts of other U.S. insurers and competitors. “
Many companies struggle to build a data-driven business culture, and according to the latest public data, only 20.6% of Fortune 1000 companies have achieved this goal. To meet this challenge, TIAA is on a mission to responsibly embed data and AI into decisions, interactions and processes. Mr Durvasura said: “Our products and services are born from a foundation of accurate, up-to-date and trusted data, so we are focused on institutionalizing data governance. We are building an AI/ML development environment that seamlessly builds, manages, deploys, and monitors models at scale,” Duvasula continues. “Our field agents and client service representatives want access to real-time, personalized and relevant insights to improve their operational efficiency every day. We want our consultants to provide analytics that provide more benefits to our participants.”
Generative AI has the potential to be a game-changing transformational capability for today’s enterprises, bringing not only new opportunities but also some serious challenges. How do companies like TIAA adopt these new technologies safely and responsibly? TIAA has developed a generative AI prototype called “Mr.” Carnegie leverages generative AI/LLM (Large Scale Language Models). This allows us to respond to inquiries on complex subjects such as SECURE 2.0 specifically for a specific retirement path. TIAA is also experimenting with additional generative AI use cases, such as the ability to parse complex contract documents and summarize benefits, and “agent assist and field consultant avatar creation”. Mr Durvasura commented: Recognizing the potential of the Metaverse, TIAA has created a unique platform that offers a variety of features that allow users to explore virtual spaces and interact with each other, from educational sessions in which he invited speakers to all-hands sessions. Metaverse has taken steps to build his platform. From conferences to city halls, our Metaverse platform delivers unique, immersive experiences that are safe, intuitive and fun. “
With many companies struggling to build buy-in from corporate leaders and prove that their investments in data, analytics and AI are delivering value, TIAA has several initiatives to achieve these goals. We are taking concrete steps. The Data & AI 2.0 Program will report to a Steering Committee that includes dedicated members of the TIAA Executive Committee. To measure and track the success of investments in data, analytics, and AI, TIAA established a “Critical 2 Success (C2S)” metric to ensure that investments in data, analytics, and AI are aligned with all strategic business initiatives. We ensure that it is meticulously measured. The company also overhauled its technology investment prioritization process and introduced cadences to ensure technology delivery drives the business, including the use of management reporting dashboards for executive committees and the board of directors. bottom.
Data, analytics and AI are now playing a bigger role than ever before in various TIAA efforts. “We continuously measure the business value of our AI investments from product development, he AI automation, to reducing manual processes and handoffs in client service,” concludes Duvasula. As these efforts demonstrate, TIAA is actively using data, analytics and AI to transform his 105-year-old company and operate it as a socially responsible leader in the 21st century. increase.cent century.
