Millennials Bummed Over Social Security Prospects

A new study shows that millennials are worried about their retirement, especially their chances of ever collecting Social Security (SS). The Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS) “18th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey” found that 80 percent of millennials are worried that Social Security will not be there for them when they are ready to retire.

However, they are not the only group with concerns: 83 percent of Generation X and 65 percent of baby boomers also have the same concern.

“Most workers are counting on Social Security as a meaningful source of income in retirement and most are concerned about its future,” said Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of Transamerica Institute and TCRS, in a press release. “Reform is needed to mitigate Social Security’s funding shortfalls, but policymakers have made little progress in identifying and implementing specific changes. Workers need clarity and direction so they can plan accordingly.”

However, it’s interesting how, despite that fear, 84 percent of millennials, 81 percent of Gen X and 91 percent of baby boomers still expect SS to help fund their retirement. This could account for why only 18 percent of workers are “very” confident that they will be able to fully retire with a comfortable lifestyle, with Gen X being the least confident. The data shows that 55 percent of Gen X workers are somewhat or very confident about their chances of retiring comfortably, compared to 67 percent of millennial workers and 62 percent of baby boomer workers.

The lack of confidence could also be why the majority of workers (56 percent) plan to continue working in retirement, with 14 percent reporting that they plan to work full-time and 42 percent saying they will work part-time.

“American workers have seen gains in their retirement accounts over the past five years. The question is whether these gains are adequate for funding their retirement,” said Collinson. “All workers share many retirement-related risks. However, each demographic segment faces unique opportunities and challenges. By increasing an understanding of the commonalities and differences, we can identify solutions to help those in greatest need, and in turn, all workers.”

Wayfair Deploys Google AI to Scale and Enrich Product Catalogs

Google, Wayfair, AI, retail, partnerships

Wayfair has reduced the time needed to curate product listings by 67%, saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and improved some conversion rates by 2% by deploying Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

The online retailer shared these results in a Sunday (Jan. 10) press release emailed to PYMNTS announcing that it is using Google’s Gemini models on Vertex AI to enhance its product catalog and unlock “the next generation of retail experiences.”

“With Google Cloud, we’ve been able to efficiently scale and enrich our product catalogs, enabling us to support a more seamless and engaging shopping experience for our customers,” Wayfair Chief Technology Officer Fiona Tan said in the release.

Gemini on Google Cloud improved Wayfair’s time-to-market by automatically categorizing products across its 30 million product portfolio, delivered cost savings by eliminating the need to manually tag attributes like color and style, and improved conversion rates by increasing the accuracy of product attributes and improving the coverage of attribute tags in the retailer’s catalog, according to the release.

The technology also automatically catches errors in product dimensions and flags inappropriate materials, per the release.

Wayfair is also using Gemini for Google Workspace to boost employees’ productivity, according to the release.

The retailer is using AI features in this suite of productivity apps to draft and respond to emails, summarize and proofread documents, build presentation templates and gain expertise in new areas, per the release.

“By harnessing the power of Gemini and Google Workspace, Wayfair is not only automating complex tasks and boosting employee collaboration, but also creating more personalized and engaging experiences for every shopper,” Matt Renner, president, global revenue at Google Cloud, said in the release.

The rise of large language models (LLMs) has thrust generative AI into the driver’s seat of retail technologies, prompting brands to reassess their strategies, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence and AI-ID collaboration, “What Generative AI Has in Store for the Retail Industry.”

The report found that 92% of companies are using AI-driven personalization to drive growth and that 77% of business leaders rank generative AI as the most impactful emerging technology.