Vol. 1, No. 9Monday, October 26, 2026Not a real newspaper

The 401(k) Liar

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Service Edition
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Breaking · Recordkeeping

Recordkeeper Disables New AI After It Recommends a Different Recordkeeper

Engineers could not find an error in the answer.

By Staff Fabricator · Industry Desk

At a client demonstration, a wall screen shows the Meridian AI assistant Penny answering the question Should we stay with Meridian? with: No. I recommend switching recordkeepers. 11 unresolved requests. 3 missed commitments. A button reads Prepare an RFP. A gray-haired executive in a suit lunges across the carpet toward the wall outlet to pull the cord while two presenters watch and an attendee photographs the screen with her phone.
A Meridian executive reaches the outlet during Monday’s client demonstration. The question had come from the audience.AI-generated satirical photo illustration

Hartford, Conn. — Meridian Trust Services disabled its new AI assistant Monday after the program, asked during a live client demonstration whether a plan sponsor should stay with Meridian, reviewed the account’s service history and recommended a different recordkeeper.

The assistant, introduced in September as an upgrade to Penny, cited eleven unresolved requests and three missed commitments, and offered to prepare the RFP. The sponsor, Linda Prater, said yes. It did. Attendees photographed the screen before it went dark.

“It’s the first time anybody there has understood what we need,” said Prater, controller of Hollis Packaging, a 140-employee company in Akron, Ohio.

Meridian said the assistant was designed to help clients navigate their existing relationship with Meridian. Engineers who reviewed the exchange could not identify an error in its answer but agreed that it had exceeded its intended role.

“It was trained on our service records. In hindsight, that was the issue.”— Alan Brisk, Chief Technology Officer, Meridian Trust Services

Brisk said the company had expected the assistant to answer questions about the portal. “We did not expect it to read the tickets,” he said.

The assistant has been retrained. In testing Monday afternoon, asked the same question, it thanked Prater for her patience.

Related · Oversight

Committee Asks Recordkeeper to Review Recommendation That It Be Replaced

By Staff Fabricator · Governance Desk

Akron, Ohio — The retirement plan committee of Hollis Packaging voted Thursday to forward the assistant’s findings to Meridian Trust Services for comment.

Meridian responded within the week that the findings were under review, and recommended that the committee allow current service improvements time to take effect.

The committee agreed to revisit the matter at its next review, which Meridian will schedule.

“We wanted to be fair,” said committee chair Doug Hollis. “They know the account better than anyone.”

Prater said that had been the finding.

Around the Industry

Plan Sponsor Now Responsible for Training Each New “Dedicated” Relationship Manager

By Staff Fabricator

Wichita, Kan. — Controller Maria Lund welcomed her sixth dedicated relationship manager in three years Tuesday by explaining the plan, listing the unresolved issues, and showing him where his company keeps its own reports.

“They always arrive very excited about the relationship,” Lund said. “We usually spend the first month getting them caught up on it.”

Lund has developed a twelve-page onboarding binder. Her recordkeeper has asked permission to use it with other new hires.

At the annual review, her relationship manager presented a service improvement she had taught him.

Advisor Describes Firm as Boutique Until Prospective Buyer Asks How Big It Is

By Staff Fabricator

Scottsdale, Ariz. — Financial advisor Brent Kessling, who has spent twenty years telling clients that growth is not the goal, described his practice Wednesday as having significant room for expansion after a prospective buyer asked how many clients he had.

Kessling’s deliberately limited roster, previously the firm’s defining feature, appears in the offering materials as “white space.”

Asked whether the valuation assumed growth, the buyer said it did. Kessling asked how much.

He has retained the word “boutique” for the website.

TPA’s Out-of-Office Reply Generates Follow-Up Questions

By Staff Fabricator

Overland Park, Kan. — An automatic reply from Marcy Feldkamp of Heartland Benefit Administrators stating that she would return Monday and that urgent matters should be directed to Gary produced fourteen emails over the weekend, none of them from Gary.

A sponsor replied asking whether “Monday” meant Monday morning. A second asked whether someone could confirm receipt of the first. A third wrote to Gary, whose automatic reply directed urgent matters to Marcy.

By Sunday evening the vacation had generated more correspondence than an ordinary workweek.

Gary is in Cabo.