Coachella shocked concertgoers at the appearance of a surprise performer—iconic rapper Tupac Shakur—on the final day of the hipster music festival in 2012.
Shakur, killed in a hail of gunfire while stopped at a red light in Las Vegas over 15 years earlier, danced, sang, and responded as a hologram alongside living artists Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
“This is not found footage or archival footage, this is an illusion,” El Ulbrich, Chief Creative Officer of the company that created the special effects, Digital Domain, told the Wall Street Journal at the time. “This is just the beginning.”
It’s something Jason Chepenik envisions for the retirement plan advisory space.
Chepenik, Senior Vice President of Retirement & Wealth with OneDigital, is known for the “big idea.” His innovative marketing and retirement plan enrollment tactics are widely reported. Yet, he’s kicking it up a notch with his plan to bring responsive AI to the retirement space.
“I pitched OneDigital three years ago on this idea that if Tupac could come alive during Coachella and do a full concert as a hologram, and Steven Spielberg could interview 60,000 Holocaust survivors through the Shoah Foundation and have them in various museums around the world, where any person can ask a question, and they would answer looking right at you, why couldn’t we do the same thing as advisors?” he said.
While emphasizing that “it’s not ready for prime time,” still somewhat conceptual, and there’s much to do before its wide availability, he nonetheless debuted a "Cheppy AI" beta version of sorts at OneDigital’s national conference in New Orleans in the first week of February.
“We’re trying to think of everything we can to shake a tree to see what the next version of an advisor looks like. How do you continue to grow and be innovative in the space?” Chepenik explained. “It can’t all just come from a plan design. Like, what else are we doing, and who’s leading that charge?"
It would combine a voice imprint and image technology so users could “talk” to an image, something that's more personal than googling the answer.
“‘What’s the maximum contribution limit for my HSA or 401(k)?’ You’re using the same search engine capabilities and information today but putting a hologram to it makes it seem human. It was announced [at the OneDigital conference] as sort of gimmicky but also as something that would wow attendees. How do you remain relevant in a rapidly changing, commoditized world?”
While acknowledging the compliance and legal questions and controls that need to be in place, he said those who know him and his brand know he’s not afraid to try it.
“My mission here is to inspire others to think differently, as big as you can, and have the courage to just go for it. I love being part of OneDigital because it’s a place that lets you be entrepreneurial and present ideas. They include me in the conversation, and they’re very quick to green light or red light an idea. And this idea is an example of what one day will come true.”
Notably, the technology will be able to communicate in different languages, whether it’s “Creole, Vietnamese, Portuguese, whatever the required language is,” he said. “We now have a medium to do it.”
