National HSA and Benefits Administrator
Redesigning Governance for AI Acceleration and Innovation
Our client provides comprehensive administrative and custodial services across health, wealth, retirement, and benefits solutions. They support individuals, businesses, and financial partners with offerings such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), retirement plan administration, and access to alternative investments.
Challenge + Opportunity
Our client established an AI governance council to manage risk and approve tools, but its approach lacked strategic depth and scalability. As a result, the organization only had access to basic tools and struggled to operationalize AI in a meaningful way. This led to missed opportunities for efficiency and innovation. Meanwhile, competitors were accelerating their AI investments, and our client’s board of directors grew increasingly concerned about falling behind in adoption and missing out on critical revenue streams.
With just six weeks before a key board meeting, the organization needed a clear, actionable operational governance model to identify high-impact AI use cases and accelerate its AI investment roadmap.
Leveraging Frameworks to Build a Cohesive AI Roadmap
To meet the aggressive timeline, we leveraged our Envision Framework to rapidly assess the organization’s governance programs, operational readiness, and technology landscape.
We facilitated a series of “Art of the Possible” and AI strategy workshops that brought together stakeholders from four functional divisions: account management/sales, call center, operations, and technology/data. This cross-functional collaboration revealed overlapping needs, enabling participants to draft stronger AI use cases, prioritize ideas, and evaluate shared technology and investment opportunities.
We complemented these workshops with a focused review of the client’s data and technology architecture. Using our proprietary AI Operational Maturity Assessment Model and PACE Framework, we evaluated capabilities across tooling access, data readiness, risk mitigation, and model usage. We also assessed approval and governance processes for completeness, efficiency, and scalability.
After our assessment, we made recommendations that balanced input from compliance, HR, and the chief information security officer, emphasizing actionable mitigation strategies and impact measurement. Central to our solution was developing an AI Center of Excellence (CoE) focused on strategy, business partnership, and technology guidance. As the organization evolves, the CoE can expand to include project management, an AI evangelist, and integrated KPI monitoring. We also delivered a use case evaluation template based on an impact-versus-complexity framework to standardize prioritization and identify shared investments.
We applied our Envision and PACE frameworks, along with the AI Operational Maturity Assessment Model, to identify high-value use cases, evaluate capabilities, and assess governance. These insights informed a strategic AI acceleration roadmap, anchored by the recommendation to establish an AI Center of Excellence to enable scalable adoption, strong governance, and alignment with business outcomes.
Results
Accelerating AI Investment With Confidence and Clarity
We helped the client identify more than 80 AI use cases, providing a robust foundation to jump start prioritization and investment. Furthermore, the AI CoE and use case evaluation framework were designed to not only accelerate AI deployment but also ensure long-term governance, accountability, and alignment with business outcomes.
Our recommendations were laid out in a strategic AI acceleration roadmap designed to guide the organization from fragmented experimentation to a scalable, enterprise-wide AI strategy. This roadmap empowers the client to build internal capabilities and confidently advance its AI initiatives. With it, the organization can now identify and prioritize high-impact use cases, streamline governance, and make smarter, faster AI investments—positioning itself competitively in a rapidly evolving market.
