Every year, employers invest time and energy into building the right benefits package. But that’s only half the battle. The bigger challenge? Helping employees make confident, informed choices—without second-guessing or guesswork.
For too long, benefits decisions have been treated as a numbers game—plug in the data, run the calculation, and hope for the best. But logic alone isn’t enough. Benefits aren’t just financial decisions, they’re personal ones.
That’s why 2025 is about eliminating uncertainty from benefits decisions altogether.
ALEX is redefining how benefits are communicated, recommended, and experienced—so employees don’t just select a plan, they know it’s the right one for their health, budget, and lifestyle.
Most benefits platforms inform. ALEX guides. Most tools explain. ALEX empowers. Most experiences are designed for the plan year. ALEX is designed for real life.
- Empathetic intelligence: ALEX isn’t just a decision support tool; it actively understands and adapts to how employees think and feel about benefits.
- Eliminating guesswork: Unlike platforms that just present information, ALEX guides employees in a way that makes choices feel easy, obvious, and right.
- A benefits experience that evolves: ALEX personalizes not just recommendations but the entire benefits journey, including real-time insights and year-round support.
This isn’t just about better communication. It’s about removing friction, eliminating doubt, and making confident decisions the norm. This year’s updates to ALEX build on that mission—eliminating friction, deepening personalization, and giving employees the confidence to choose what’s right for them.
Support for New Plan Types
As new plan designs gain traction—for example no-deductible plans like Surest, SimplePay, and Coupe—employees are expected to make sense of unfamiliar terms, structures, and payment models. But when benefits feel unfamiliar, participation stalls.
ALEX closes the confidence gap. By breaking down how these plans work and how they compare to traditional PPOs and HDHPs, ALEX helps employees understand what they’re signing up for—before they sign on the dotted line.
What they get:
- A guided experience that demystifies alternative plans
- Side-by-side comparisons with traditional options
- Transparent pricing breakdowns
- Unbiased guidance that leads to better-fit choices
This is the kind of clarity no other platform delivers—especially for plans most employees have never seen before.
A Decision-Support Algorithm That Thinks Like a Human
Most decision-support tools run on pure logic. But logic alone falls short—because not every employee thinks about benefits the same way. Some crave predictability. Others prioritize savings. Many need a mix of both.
Instead of treating employees like rows in a spreadsheet, pushing the cheapest or most statistically “optimal” plan, ALEX weighs the nuances of each person’s financial reality and comfort with risk. It listens before it recommends. This isn’t logic in a vacuum—it’s logic with empathy. It’s the first empathetic algorithm in the benefits space.
Where traditional tools calculate the most efficient answer, ALEX now calculates the most human one. And the result is a recommendation that doesn’t just make sense on paper, but feels right in real life.
Smarter Guidance, Backed by Real Data—Not Guesswork
Employees want to make good decisions about their benefits. But let’s be real, even the savviest employee is often guessing. Without real insight into their past or projected healthcare needs, choosing benefits can feel like a high-stakes game—with consequences that stretch far beyond open enrollment.
That’s why ALEX now uses both aggregate and personal claims data to eliminate the guesswork and deliver smarter, more confident guidance.
- Aggregate Data, Personalized Insight: For years, ALEX has used healthcare claims data from over a million anonymized individuals to understand how people with similar profiles actually use care. That means your employees see recommendations grounded in real-world behavior—not just theoretical costs.
- Now, Personal Claims Data for Real-Time Clarity: For the first time, employees can choose to share their insurance information with ALEX. In return, they’ll see real-time insights into their deductible progress and out-of-pocket max—context that makes benefits decisions more concrete, personalized, and accurate.
Employees don’t have to estimate last year’s spending. They don’t have to imagine what’s affordable. ALEX shows them, clearly and confidently. And when employees feel certain about their decision, they stop second-guessing—and start trusting.
Expanding Support for the Whole Benefits Package
ALEX has long gone beyond medical, dental, and vision. Now, it also supports pet insurance, cancer insurance, and permanent life and long-term care—making it easier for your team to communicate the full value of your offering.
But this isn’t about ticking boxes. It’s about explaining value.
Every recommendation is grounded in the employee’s context, not a carrier’s incentive. ALEX answers the “why it matters” behind each benefit, and only suggests what’s genuinely useful, making it easier to showcase the full value of the benefits package without overwhelming employees in the process. That unbiased, people-first approach builds trust—and boosts engagement.
These voluntary and supplemental benefits join hospital indemnity, critical illness, accident and AD&D in ALEX’s expanding benefits library.
Proactive, Personalized Communications—All Year Long
Employees don’t just need help during open enrollment. They need it when it matters most—when a new diagnosis hits, when they forget about their HSA balance, when they’re navigating mental health resources in silence.
That’s why ALEX’s personalization doesn’t stop at recommendations. With census-based communication, ALEX delivers targeted, relevant messages year-round, based on real plan enrollment and known needs.
- Nudges to use tax-advantaged accounts before the deadline
- Personalized support for chronic conditions like diabetes
- Mental health resources, delivered when they’re needed most
It’s smarter outreach. Less noise. And fewer questions funneled back to HR.
Instant Answers with Ask ALEX
This year, Ask ALEX, our new AI-powered chatbot, makes it easier than ever to get trusted benefits answers in real time. Employees can ask questions 24/7—from “What’s my deductible?” to “Can I use my HSA for this?”—and get immediate, accurate, personalized responses.
Ask ALEX is always on, always clear, and always aligned with your company’s unique benefits setup. It cuts down on back-and-forth emails and frees up HR to focus on strategy instead of answering the same 12 questions over and over again.
Leave Management, Simplified
Understanding time away from work shouldn’t be confusing—or anxiety-inducing. That’s why Leave Management powered by Aidora is now part of the ALEX experience.
Whether someone is preparing for parental leave, planning surgery, or navigating mental health leave, ALEX provides:
- Step-by-step guidance based on your actual LOA policies
- A clear view into how leave will affect pay and benefits
- Support that starts before the paperwork and lasts through their return
It’s human, helpful, and easy to use—exactly what employees need when life gets complicated.
A Better First Impression—for Every Employee
First impressions shape the entire employee experience. ALEX’s refreshed Sneak Peek videos set the tone early—introducing benefits in a modern, engaging format that highlights what matters most, right when it matters most.
Whether it’s a new hire’s first week or open enrollment prep, these videos help employees feel welcomed, informed, and excited—before they ever log in to make a decision.
Implementation, Reimagined
Time is tight, and implementation shouldn’t add friction.
New enhancements remove common bottlenecks—automatically extracting plan details from uploaded documents, simplifying eligibility mapping, and reducing required fields for lighter packages.
The result? Less manual lift. Faster launches. More time to focus on strategy.
Confidence Starts with Smarter Guidance
In a benefits landscape shaped by complexity, change, and rising expectations, clarity is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s essential.
With its 2025 updates, ALEX raises the bar: not just helping employees understand their options, but giving them the tools to choose with conviction. From empathetic plan recommendations to personalized, data-driven support that lasts all year, ALEX transforms how benefits are experienced.
Because when every decision feels obvious, informed, and right—that’s when benefits finally work.
