Is AI the front door to superannuation?

Increasingly, when people are searching for answers, they are not interacting with traditional search engines, but instead going to one of a growing ecosystem of AI search capabilities such as Perplexity (the AI Browser), Google Gemini (The AI Search Engine) and ChatGPT (The AI Assistant). This is accelerating the emergence of ‘zero-click’ search where everything the user needs is presented on the first page without needing to click through to other sites. This also means that if organisations want to remain relevant, they need to be serious about how their products, services and brand is being presented in AI assisted search results.

The direction is clear, and hard to ignore.

• AI search has already reached mass adoption and continues to grow exponentially with ChatGPT receiving 5.72B visits per month and Google AI Overview attracting 2B users per month.
• Over a third of generative AI users report replacing traditional search with AI assistants.
• Website traffic is trending down as more research happens inside AI chat interfaces. Even where queries still flow through search engines, they increasingly result in “zero‑click” answers, where AI fields the question directly. When Google’s AI Overviews appear, the median zero‑click rate rises to around 80%. As a result, more decisions are being made before a person ever reaches a brand website.

We want to look at what the considerations are for superannuation if AI chat interfaces become the place where people first learn, compare, and possibly even act around superannuation. What happens if they become the front door? Are they already?

Two responses to the same shift: Walmart and Airbnb

As AI increasingly mediates how people discover and compare options, this loss of visibility has already become a strategic concern. The shift has the potential to play out in a range of significant ways: changes in how visibility is distributed, greater reliance on paid channels to offset declining organic reach, and pressure on marketing efficiency, budgets, and resourcing. This loss of control over discovery is a challenge to which all industries must now respond. In many cases, this is driving a rethink of the operating models required to meet the challenge. Different approaches provide us a good insight into how this is happening.

The Walmart Approach

Walmart is embracing large language models as an extension of its distribution layer. Through partnerships with OpenAI and Google it is a leader in what is being called ‘agentic commerce’. Allowing AI systems to surface their relevant products and details, refine options through conversation, and, in some cases, complete a purchase, all without the customer ever leaving the chat interface.

Walmart’s role does not disappear. Instead, its focus shifts to differentiating based on inventory, pricing and fulfilment. Rather than requiring customers to come to its website or app, Walmart is making those capabilities available through third party AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini, effectively allowing them to act as a front door into its retail ecosystem.

The transition from traditional web or app search to agent-led commerce represents the next great evolution in retail. We aren’t just watching the shift, we are driving it.

– John Furner, Walmart U.S. President and CEO

The Airbnb Approach

Airbnb is taking a more cautious view. While it is investing heavily in AI internally, CEO Brian Chesky made it clear in an earnings call late last year that large language model (LLM) chatbots should not yet be treated as a replacement for existing discovery and booking gateways. Chesky has said that current third-party integration capabilities are “not quite ready”, particularly given Airbnb’s reliance on verified members, trust, and transactional accuracy. For Airbnb to operate inside a chatbot, the environment would need to be robust enough to function in an almost self-contained way preserving identity, context, and control.

Chesky has described AI agents today as “potentially useful lead generation”, but he has been clear on the strategic priority: Airbnb wants to remain the place people actually book travel.

The thing I want to caution is I don’t think that AI agents — I don’t think we should think of chatbots like Google — I don’t think we should think of them as the ‘new Google’ yet. 

– Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO 

Owning the product supply chain

The difference comes down to where each company believes its value sits. Walmart is comfortable allowing AI systems to become the front door because its advantage lies in range, pricing, and owning the supply chain from the wholesaler to the retail customer.

Owning the experience

Airbnb is more cautious because its differentiation depends on trust, identity, and the shape of the user journey itself. In that context, handing the front door to a third-party can risk eroding the value of their platform.

The fund dilemma: owning experience or being the product

For the past 15 years or so, super funds have — quite rightly — focused on owning the member experience. Significant investment has gone into portals, apps, communications, and service models designed to make funds feel approachable, trustworthy, and differentiated.

If tools like Open AI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini become the first place members go to ask questions and explore options, that experience is no longer owned by the fund. The interface, tone, and flow belong to the AI platform. The fund’s product sits behind it, increasingly abstracted from the relationship it has worked hard to build.

So should funds lean in or push back?

WWWD? (What would Walmart do?)

There is a compelling argument for leaning in. If AI chat is where members are starting, it makes sense to do everything possible to be present there.

In practice, this means paying attention to how fund products are described inside AI mediated environments — ensuring their products are described accurately, their attributes are understood, and their differentiation is reflected when models summarise the market. Marketers are beginning to describe this as ‘generative engine optimisation’ or GEO, but the underlying idea is familiar: it’s a new version of the same challenge businesses have faced with search engine optimisation (SEO) and comparison platforms for years.

The second response is operational. Funds leaning into this path accept that, over time, AI agents may not just inform decisions but execute them. That means working toward the technical foundations that make this possible: secure APIs, consent frameworks, and integrations that allow actions like consolidation, switching, or insurance changes to occur with appropriate controls. 

In this model, the fund accepts that it is, in effect, a white-label product provider. Differentiation moves away from owning the interface and toward outcomes: net returns, fees, insurance suitability, reliability, and operational competence.

Funds that already emphasise low touch, low fees, and operational efficiency may find this path more natural than others.

WWAD? (What would Airbnb do?)

The alternative position is equally understandable. Superannuation is complex and highly personal. Insurance, individual circumstances, and long-term trade-offs matter, and there is a legitimate concern that nuance could be lost when mediated by a general-purpose AI.

While AI systems could, in theory, ask better questions and incorporate more context, whether they will do so reliably — and without error — remains an open question. For funds that see trust, education, and guidance as core differentiators, surrendering the front door can feel completely out of sync with everything they’ve been working for.

From this perspective, fund owned chatbots are best understood as a defensive response. If funds can offer tools that are fast, accurate, and capable of taking action, they may still anchor engagement within environments they control. 

This may not be a clean binary choice. It’s well understood that different cohorts engage in different ways. Previous generations relied on mail and call centres; later ones expected portals and apps. AI chat may simply be the next interface layer.

No matter what funds think or where they fit above, this shift is something that should be reckoned with.

A familiar unease

Fears of superannuation becoming ‘commoditised’ have been around for years. Performance tests, comparison dashboards, and the gradual expansion of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) all push the system toward greater uniformity and lower switching friction. Each raising similar questions about whether funds risk becoming interchangeable products, differentiated mainly by fees and returns.

AI accelerates that pressure. Instead of navigating tables, a member can ask a single question — “Which super fund should I be in?” — and receive an answer shaped by an intermediary with no fund controls.

Some funds will be comfortable with that, treating AI as another channel to optimise around. Others will want to remain the place members come to directly. Most will try to balance both. But the choice can’t be avoided altogether.

Is AI the front door to superannuation? is part of The Quarterly – Q3 FY26

Key Contributor:

This article was also strengthened by a wider group of Novigi specialists, whose withering years of toil and rich experience added depth and clarity to the perspectives shared.

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