But the same technology is also helping humans detect suspicious behavior before money disappears. Recently, TIAA flagged an unusual request from a 76-year-old customer attempting to withdraw his entire $3 million retirement portfolio. According to Duckett, the retiree had been targeted by a scammer—but the company’s AI system was first to notice something was off.
“He was being scammed, but our AI tool flagged it,” she said. A portfolio manager then escalated the out-of-pattern withdrawal to TIAA’s fraud team, which spent hours trying to convince the customer he was being deceived.
“The first thing is you don’t want to believe you’ve been scammed,” Duckett said. “You’ve almost been trained to defend the scam.” Eventually, a fraud specialist contacted the man’s daughter, and TIAA stopped the money from moving.
Even before AI became mainstream, scamming was on the rise.
For Duckett, the case of the 76-year-old—and the broader rise in scams—underscores the continued need for humans and technology to work hand in hand to protect assets.
“This was the intersection of your workplace, which is our people, your culture, and AI, and that to me, is the opportunity,” Duckett said. “AI by itself would not have necessarily protected this person.”
“The human is not just in the loop, it’s still all about the humans,” she added. “It’s not just the loop, it’s the whole highway.”
Like past waves of disruption, Duckett expects some jobs to disappear—but many more to emerge in their place, particularly in areas tied to cybersecurity, fraud prevention, and AI oversight.
“Cyber is a big risk,” she said. “We will need more people in cyber, we will need more people monitoring, we will need more people analyzing what AI is telling you.”
“Our young people have always informed leaders on where the puck is going,” she said. Ignoring the next generation, she added, “would be a bad play.”
Above all, Duckett argued workers and leaders alike need to remain flexible
“Agility is the most important skill set,” she said, pointing to how TIAA is increasingly rethinking jobs around projects, problem-solving, and cross-functional work. AI, she said, offers companies an opportunity to modernize work—but leaders also need to acknowledge the uncertainty many workers feel.
“[AI] comes with a lot of anxiety, and it comes with a lot of, ‘What will this mean for me?’” Duckett said. “We have to be willing to have those open conversations, those honest conversations.”
