Modernize or Fall Behind: 2025 Retirement & Pension Top Industry Trends

Retirement and pension administrators are navigating a period of accelerated, multi-directional change that is reshaping both their risk profile and their operating reality.  On one side, demographic shifts—aging populations,  retirement waves, longevity risk, and more mobile careers—are driving higher transaction volumes, more complex eligibility and vesting scenarios, and heightened sensitivity to benefit accuracy. On the other, regulatory and accounting requirements continue to evolve, demanding more granular data, faster reporting cycles, and demonstrable governance at every step of the benefit lifecycle.

How are leading retirement and pension administrators modernizing their core operations under rising pressure, and what does that mean for the next decade of retirement administration?

Our latest Retirement & Pension thought leadership report reveals modernization has become a board-level mandate. Legacy complexity is slowing funds and insurers down, while cloud-native, AI-powered platforms are speeding ahead.

Key Trends:

• Legacy complexity and fragmentation are structural constraints to progress
• Modernization is no longer optional—it is a strategic and operational imperative.
• A clear picture of the target state exists: cloud-native, automated, data-driven, and AI-ready.
• Leaders consistently describe modernization as a multidimensional change agenda, not simply a technology refresh.

For plan sponsors and administrators, modernization must be framed as an enterprise transformation program that unifies technology, data, operations, and cybersecurity—starting with high-friction processes and a unified data foundation and progressing toward AI-assisted operations.  For those that succeed, trust and transparency will become enduring hallmarks of retirement system health and key indicators of how credibly retirement promises can be honored in the face of demographic change, economic uncertainty, and evolving risk over the coming decade and beyond.

Download this Thought Leadership to gain perspective on:

• Understand how these trends are creating operational and member pressures that are unsustainable.
• See what other leaders are doing to define and execute a strategy to address these challenges for future success.
• Learn what other retirement and pension organizations are doing to rebuild trust and stay relevant in a rapidly changing market.