SAVVI launches SelectSmart 2026 for benefits decisions

SAVVI Financial has launched SelectSmart 2026, a new version of its platform for workplace benefits decisions.

The platform gives employees personalised recommendations using existing benefits and household data, removing the questionnaires many benefits tools require before showing guidance. It brings healthcare coverage, retirement savings, healthcare accounts and take-home pay into a single decision process.

The launch comes as employers face more complex benefits enrolment cycles and workers weigh rising healthcare costs against savings and retirement priorities. Many enrolment systems still rely on separate tools, manual data entry and fixed recommendations, leaving employees to compare trade-offs on their own.

SelectSmart 2026 is built on SAVVI's decision intelligence system and its NextDollar optimisation engine. That allows the platform to generate recommendations immediately from data already held by employers and benefits systems.

A new AI chatbot has also been added to explain recommendations and answer questions in context. The tool is intended to clarify guidance rather than replace the logic behind each recommendation.

Broader scope

Beyond open enrolment, SAVVI has expanded the NextDollar engine to support year-round financial decisions, including healthcare accounts, employer matches, emergency savings and retirement contributions.

The release also includes SAVVI Studio, a tool for HR, brokers and implementation teams. It is designed to simplify onboarding workflows, automate handoffs and provide weekly updated metrics on engagement and operations.

SAVVI is positioning the product around the idea that employees do not want to become benefits specialists during enrolment. Instead, the platform is meant to show how individual choices affect wider household finances, including premiums, estimated annual healthcare costs, tax advantages and net pay.

SAVVI cited internal and customer-based figures to support its approach. Organisations using its guidance have reported a 70% reduction in HR calls, a 4.1x return on investment, a 138% increase in high-deductible health plan enrolment, a 230% increase in voluntary benefit elections, a 100% increase in HSA enrolments and retirement savings rates 13 times higher than among non-users.

One figure in the company's material said 27% of SelectSmart users changed their retirement savings rate for the 2026 plan year, compared with 2% of non-users. SAVVI also reported employee satisfaction of 4.5 out of 5, based on aggregated anonymised data from guidance experiences across multiple benefit platforms.

User response

The company included feedback from an employee who used an earlier version of the product during the previous open enrolment cycle.

"Wow this is something I've never seen before in my life, similar to someone walking with you right now. Easy to complete with zero need of outside guidance" - Employee SelectSmart user, Open Enrolment 2025

The benefits technology market has drawn growing attention as employers try to improve participation in savings and health plans while reducing administrative workload on HR teams. A persistent problem is that workers often default to prior-year choices because comparing premiums, out-of-pocket exposure, tax treatment and contribution levels takes time and confidence many users do not have.

SAVVI's approach reflects a wider shift in the sector towards recommendation tools that use existing employment and household data rather than relying on long surveys. Vendors are also adding conversational AI features, although they are under pressure to show that automated explanations are tied to auditable recommendation models rather than generic responses.

In that context, SAVVI is presenting SelectSmart 2026 as a system that links benefits, savings and retirement decisions more closely throughout the year instead of treating open enrolment as a one-off transaction. The expanded product is designed to help employees assess trade-offs more quickly and make decisions with fewer manual steps.