We just rang in the new year, but planning season is already in full swing. Over the next few months, you’ll be deep in conversations with your broker to shape your 2027 benefits strategy.
It’s the same cycle every year: premiums go up, networks shift, and everyone crosses their fingers that the new plan will be “easier to understand” or “better utilized.” But this year, along with a staggering rise in healthcare costs, we’re facing a fundamental shift in how employees expect to engage with their benefits.
AI can address both of those challenges head-on. It’s already proven to drive better employee experiences and measurable cost savings for employers. If your broker isn’t advocating for AI as part of your benefits strategy, then you need to ask one simple question:
Why not?
Employers are facing sustained increases in medical spend, pharmacy costs, and specialty care utilization. Most finance leaders would probably agree that traditional cost containment strategies alone won’t be enough over the next few years. There are many ways AI can help you reduce costs, including making voluntary benefits more visible, improving cost predictability, and refining claims management.
When employees are guided to the right plan, the right provider, and the right care setting, costs come down. When your team has transparent insight into what’s driving claims, you can act quickly and see real improvements.
Healthee’s AI platform delivers insights via advanced fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) detection and claims analytics for employers. Our AI engine scans historical claims data to surface billing errors and high-impact anomalies that standard audits often miss, including duplicate charges, overbilling, unbundled procedures, pharmacy waste, and provider abuse. Each finding is reviewed by licensed clinicians and coordinated directly with TPAs and providers to recover dollars back to the plan.
With a pay-for-performance model and no added workload for HR teams, these capabilities give employers a practical way to move from reactive cost management to proactive savings as they plan for 2027.
As 2027 strategy conversations ramp up, one thing is clear: healthcare isn’t getting simpler, but employees want it to feel effortless.
The truth is, benefits are confusing for everyone. I’ve seen it firsthand with our clients at Healthee: even highly educated, well-resourced teams struggle to explain what coinsurance means or whether a specialist visit will be covered. When employees don’t understand how to use their health coverage, they avoid care or overspend on it. Both of which drive up long-term costs for your business.
An important data point we noticed in our recent benefits report is that over 21% of 2026 enrollees are digital-native, insurance-unaware Gen Zers. They expect a modern, proactive experience. When they don’t get it, they go elsewhere. Many are already using unsecured, non-personalized AI tools like ChatGPT to answer healthcare and benefits questions.
The risk? ChatGPT doesn’t know your plan design, so any contracts or point solutions you have in place to save money won’t be considered. The chatbot will give inaccurate, costly guidance to your employees.
On top of that, ChatGPT isn’t a private platform, which means there could be potential data exposures. As an employer, the time to get ahead of this is now — by giving employees the intelligent, secure tools they’re already looking for.
When you add purpose-built AI to your strategy, healthcare navigation becomes smarter, safer, and more aligned with how your workforce wants to engage.
AI will be one of the most strategic tools HR can implement in 2027 to meet employee expectations while keeping costs in check.
At Healthee, we work with employers who’ve made AI a core part of their benefits experience. The results speak for themselves.
We’ve seen a 76% increase in benefits utilization. We’ve seen HR teams save over 9 hours a week on benefits-related questions and reduce admin work by 87%. We’ve seen employees who normally avoid care proactively book appointments because Zoe, our AI health assistant, helped them understand what’s covered and where to go.
Most of these organizations didn’t overhaul their benefits to get there. They simply layered smarter technology into what they already had.
As you prepare for that 2027 meeting, I suggest adding these questions to the agenda:
We’re in the middle of a shift. Employees expect more clarity. HR teams want more efficiency. And leadership expects more value from every dollar spent on healthcare. AI isn’t a silver bullet, but it is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful tools we have to meet those expectations at scale.
So, when you sit down with your broker this year, ask the question that too many leaders skip: “Where does AI fit into our strategy?”
If you want more guidance on how AI can transform benefits navigation for your employees and increase your bottom line, our team at Healthee would be happy to have that conversation with you.
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The US healthcare system is well-known for its complexity. And with so many insurance options, providers, and regulations, no wonder employees and their families struggle to navigate their healthcare benefits.
Strike a balance between employee experience and cost control by adding health insurance plans without a deductible to your strategy.
