Workplace benefits fintech company Candidly has added six new AI agent capabilities, including new financial guidance for navigating Trump Accounts ahead of their upcoming July 4 launch.
Starting Saturday, parents, guardians, employers and other contributors can deposit money into a child's Trump Account. Children born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, who open an account will also receive a $1,000 Treasury Department contribution invested in the stock market. Candidly’s distribution partners include Schwab and Bank of America, which both announced $1,000 Trump account match offerings for their employees.
“The guidance provided on Trump accounts through [Candidly's] composable stack is guidance on eligibility, contribution levels, employer contribution optimization to help the end user understand the tax advantages of their own contributions and employer contributions,” said CEO Laurel Taylor, who founded Candidly in 2016 with a focus on student debt guidance.
Candidly’s distribution partners also include Merrill Lynch, Vanguard, Empower, PNC, Lincoln Financial Group, TIAA, and New York Life. Other new AI-powered capabilities offered by Candidly include retirement advice covering 401(k) optimization, match analysis, and Roth strategy, as well as guidance on budgeting, employee benefits, equity plans, and tax-advantaged retirement, brokerage, 529s, HSA, and held-away accounts.
Cait, Candidly’s AI chat assistant, launched last year as a conversational AI tool for employees seeking guidance on student loans and college planning. According to Taylor, 61% of Candidly’s AI chat users move fluidly between topics, such as asking for guidance on their personal Trump Accounts to 529 college savings plans to 401(k) or other benefits.
“This composable stack of AI agents enables us to harmonize holistically across the entire benefit stack that an employer is offering to their employee population,” Taylor told InvestmentNews. “You'll see a user go into a 401(k) conversation [and ask] what's the interplay between Trump savings account, 529 and my 401(k) plan, and how do I think about where I optimize my dollars across those three?”
Candidly says its enterprise partnerships position the company to serve 1 in 2 U.S. workers. Salesforce Ventures is an investor in Candidly, whose other backers include Altos Ventures, Breton Capital, Cercano Management, and Rethink Impact.
In March, Candidly sold its college financial marketplace to NerdWallet. All six new AI agent capabilities will be available at the end of this month through Candidly's MCP gateway and API, with additional white-labeled front-end experiences debuting this fall.
“What we've learned since founding the company is that while education financing and student debt was kind of our wedge into financial wellness, the interconnectedness of paying down student debt, emergency savings, 401(k) savings — it's all interconnected,” Taylor says.
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