Insights from ASFA 2025: AI, risk and the evolving superannuation landscape

Last week marked my first visit to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) Conference 2025 on the Gold Coast. It was a standout experience bringing together superannuation, technology and risk at a critical inflection point.

As someone who’s spent many years as a CIO across major organisations including Financial Services, I found the conversations pragmatic, candid and forward-leaning.

The Equal Experts team ran our expo-activation on the floor – more on that shortly – adding  an extra dimension to the conference. I was also able to hear from a panel discussing what they termed the “AI Showdown”.

1. The threat landscape is evolving rapidly.

The AI Showdown panel discussion featured speakers from the Australian Signals Directorate, Aware Super and other risk/tech specialists, who all cut straight to the chase:

• Deepfake video calls targeting senior finance executives are already happening.
• AI-powered threats are scaling fast, and are increasingly automated, context-aware, and convincing.
• Fraud isn’t just about transactions any more – it’s about identity, behaviour, narrative and sophistication.
• A survey of 120 attendees for the panel discussion showed 75% of respondents believe criminals are innovating faster than industry controls.

These are not abstract future risks; they’re live challenges for super funds today.

2. Defending with AI means more than deploying tools

In the session we were reminded that AI is both attacker and defender:

• Only around 40% of attendees reported using AI-based fraud detection tools – the panel emphasised the gap between threat and defence.
• Monitoring member behaviour and detecting anomalies is critical – the traditional “transaction equals risk” mindset is no longer sufficient.
• Defence technologies are additive – there’s no single “silver bullet”. Identity proofing, anomaly detection, behaviour modelling all must work together.
• The customer/member has a role too – “prove you are who you say you are” is now non-negotiable.

This aligns entirely with the model we adopt at Equal Experts: embedding capabilities, using lean, experienced teams, and driving operational resilience – not just deploying software.

3. Collaboration across the sector is critical

A recurring theme during ASFA (and particularly in this session) was that no organisation can defend itself in isolation.

• Cross-industry standards, protocols and information-sharing are becoming the base level expectation, not the nice-to-have.
• Superannuation, as a sector, has an opportunity to lead in collaborative threat-intelligence, given funds’ role in members’ lives and the broader ecosystem.

What Equal Experts did during our expo activation (and why it matters)

We had two key goals for the Equal Experts expo stand at ASFA – engagement and insight-sharing. How did we do?

• We showcased our AI-enabled accelerators, helping funds to reimagine their SDLC and demonstrate a prominent AI PoC for complaints handling. The goal was to show funds what is possible when harnessing technology like AI to drive better outcomes for members.
• We shared case studies from our delivery-led, co-sourced model, showing how we embed and accelerate capability, transfer knowledge and streamline costs (one of Equal Experts’ key differentiators).
• The activation created an open forum where funds could compare notes, ask direct questions and surface what’s working (and what isn’t) across the industry.

• We also used “Lego play” to help participants show what their retirement future looked like and to highlight superannuation industry challenges

What I found particularly valuable was how our expo interactions echoed the AI Showdown discussions. Delegates were responding to what the panel said with comments like, “We know we have to act, but we’re not sure where to start or who to go with.”

Reflections from my CIO perspective

Having spent many years leading large technology functions as a CIO, a few things really stood out for me at ASFA:

• Modernising platforms remains important (it always will) yet the urgency now is about resilience, integrated defence and capability uplift using AI where it makes sense.
• It’s no longer enough to find a partner to outsource transformation efforts to and strive for the best. The funds that will win are those that can embed the right mindset, tools and behaviours – “getting match fit so change will stick”.  That’s exactly the model we champion at Equal Experts.
• AI is the enabler, not the end-state. Even the best AI model will fail if the identity, governance and culture components are weak, or if the delivery is piecemeal.
• I’ve always been a proponent of smaller, highly experienced teams that move fast and drive sustainable change. The world changes too quickly for us to be slow and this is the ethos we embody at Equal Experts.  In the superannuation sector, that capability matters now more than ever.

Final thoughts

ASFA 2025 was a microcosm of what’s facing the superannuation industry: a rapidly evolving risk environment, strong imperative for collaboration, and demand for practical, outcome-driven partners who can help funds move beyond concept to capability.

For me, being there with the EE colleagues, hearing from the experts, interacting with our peers on the floor, and running the expo activation side-by-side – confirmed the future of superannuation tech isn’t just about, “what you could do”, but rather “how fast you respond and how well you embed the change”.

If your fund is grappling with AI-driven risk, identity resilience, fraud defence or capability uplift – we at Equal Experts welcome a chat.  Let’s talk about how we can partner to build the lowest-risk, highest-context future together. Contact the Equal Experts Australia team here.

About the author

Ken Gallacher is a commercially savvy, delivery focused digital executive with over 30 years’ experience leading high-impact transformations, both as a CIO and as a Partner at Big4 consulting firms. Ken brings a wide range of industry experience across financial services, healthcare, government, media, education, manufacturing and retail sectors. Connect with Ken on LinkedIn.