At a glance…
- Four Australian financial experts answer your most-asked superannuation questions.
- They cover everything from AI to superfunds to a personalised retirement budget plan.
- Have more of your superannuation and retirement questions answered in Money Matters, available now.
As superannuation is always evolving, we asked four leading experts to weigh in on the hot topics that could shape your retirement savings.
Q. What role will AI play in the superannuation system going forward, and how might it help consumers?
Mary Delahunty, CEP, ASFA:
Like many Australians, I am cautiously excited about how AI can improve our lives, and I am particularly excited about the possibilities for agentic AI (an AI system that can operate autonomously to achieve a goal) to improve the superannuation system.
Super funds are exploring how AI can transform the system in a few different ways.
One is how they provide services to members and manage day-to-day admin tasks. AI will likely play more and more of a role in things like helping to answer members’ questions quickly
and accurately, helping to gather information to process claims and helping qualified humans give financial advice faster.
As people’s super balances grow, they become more attractive to scammers. AI can be a powerful force to help detect and prevent unusual or fraudulent activity on members’ accounts.
AI is also transforming how super funds invest for their members and grow their retirement savings on several levels.
Super funds are already significant investors in the technology and infrastructure that are powering the use of AI, ensuring that Australians with a super account can benefit from investment returns in this area.
Investment teams can also use AI to analyse enormous amounts of data to help make well-informed decisions.
These tools can help investment teams find opportunities that are hidden in all that information and make the most of those opportunities to grow members’ savings.
We balance this enthusiasm with the knowledge that Australians really like to interact with humans when it comes to making decisions about their savings, so a challenge for us in super, but also in the broader financial services sector, is to find the right mix of real humans, talking to real humans, but helped by technology like AI.
Q. What investment challenges will super funds face in the next 12 to 18 months?
Evan Lucas, Economic Futurist:
Global tensions and ongoing inflation are making 2026 a more uncertain year for investors. Inflation is proving difficult to bring down, which means interest rates may stay higher for longer – something that can put pressure on returns.
In response, many super funds have been putting more money into private assets like infrastructure and other unlisted investments, which can offer more stable, long-term returns.
But these come with trade-offs. They can be harder to value and aren’t as easy to sell quickly, so funds need to carefully balance growth opportunities with protecting members’ savings.
Another challenge is rising costs across global supply chains, particularly in shipping and energy. These increases are expected to push up the cost of major projects, especially in construction and infrastructure. Contracts may be renegotiated or even cancelled.
For super funds with large investments in these areas, that creates a risk to parts of the portfolio that have traditionally been seen as steady and reliable.
Taken together – higher interest rates, rising costs and shifting conditions – the second half of 2026 is shaping up to be more volatile.
For Australians, this may mean a bumpier ride in the short term as funds work to manage risk and protect your savings.
Q. How are funds redesigning their products to provide members with a stable, ‘paycheck-like’ income that accounts for longer life expectancy and rising aged-care costs?
Kirby Rappell, Director, SuperRatings:
A common misconception around super is that it is simply a pool of money that Aussies can withdraw when they retire. While this is an option, super funds offer a range of products and support to help retirees maximise income from their savings throughout retirement.
The most common way to convert your super balance into an income is to set up an account-based pension.
These require retirees to receive regular payments from their super balance, effectively replacing the paycheck we are used to receiving. By doing this, earnings on your investments are not taxed, which boosts returns.
Retirees can choose how much they are paid and how often, subject to a legislative minimum, as well as how their balance is invested.
Some funds offer retiree-focused investment options or strategies, such as bucketing. Bucketing allows a retiree to have part of their balance in cash, where payments come from, meaning they can withstand market shocks while keeping a steady payment. Account-based pensions have many features that retirees can tailor to suit their needs, making them one of the most flexible options for accessing balances.
We are also seeing more funds offer products that provide retirees with a guaranteed income for life. These solutions increase certainty but may limit withdrawal flexibility or require retirees to accept a lower return to pay for the certainty they receive.
Often these products, coupled with Age Pension entitlements, are designed to ensure income will cover necessities and can be combined with account-based pensions to grow savings for items that aren’t must-haves.
Overall, funds want to provide options that optimise income certainty in retirement.
Funds are also investing in better tools and education around retirement options and maximising aged pension entitlements.
Many offer some form of advice, and it can be beneficial to get professional help.
Combined with the range of products available, funds can ensure retirees have the confidence to retire with enough certainty that they can focus on what matters most: a happy and healthy retirement.
Q. Why do Australians still disengage from super, and what would actually change that?
Phil Slade, Behavioural Economist and Founder/Co-CEO of Switch4Schools:
We tend to disengage from super because, psychologically, super is almost perfectly designed to be ignored.
It’s distant, abstract, and largely invisible. There’s no immediate reward for paying attention, and very little immediate consequence for not.
From a behavioural perspective, that’s a system that struggles to compete with the demands of life. As a result, super sits in the ‘important but not urgent’ column.
Then there’s the confidence gap. Many people feel they don’t understand it well enough to engage with it properly.
Simply providing more information won’t change behaviour. We need superannuation to feel relevant, simple, and emotionally meaningful to change behaviour.
That starts with framing. Instead of positioning Super as a distant product, we need to connect it to a future version of themselves that people can care about.
Not ‘retirement’ as an abstract concept, but “What choices do you want available to you when you finish your career?”
Second, reduce friction. If engaging with super feels like doing your tax return, people will avoid it.
Third, create better feedback loops. People are far more likely to stay engaged when they can see progress in real time.
For most of us, that starts with a small psychological shift. Rather than seeing super as something distant and technical, it helps to treat it like any other part of our lives that benefits from occasional attention.
A simple check-in two or three times a year, linking your balance to future choices and focusing on progress rather than perfection, can make a real difference. Engagement doesn’t require expertise; it requires ownership.
When we feel that our super is something we can influence, we are more likely to stay connected to it over time.
This article originally appeared in Money Matters by The Australian Women’s Weekly. Purchase here.
Information is correct at the time of writing. Any advice provided is general in nature and does not take your personal circumstances into consideration. Readers should seek their own financial advice.
