Researchers Submit Patent Application, “Outcome Prediction Systems And User Interfaces For Customizable User Plans”, for Approval (USPTO 20230237582): Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America

2023 AUG 11 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Washington, D.C., NewsRx journalists report that a patent application by the inventors Cosmano, Brian (Greenwood Village, CO, US); Hersch, Jeremy (Greenwood Village, CO, US); Hough, Sean (Thornton, CO, US); O’Connell, Paul (Wilmington, MA, US); Probetts, Daryl (Highlands Ranch, CO, US), filed on March 22, 2023, was made available online on July 27, 2023.

The patent’s assignee is Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America (Greenwood Village, Colorado, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Achieving personal goals requires developing a robust and reliable plan and often requires accurately maintaining data relating to the plan, regular assessment of progress along the plan, and occasional reevaluation and redesign of the plan to ensure tracking toward the ultimate goal. While many individuals are capable of performing such activities for relatively straightforward personal goals, the time, effort, and expertise to evaluate and optimize plans for more sophisticated and complex undertakings often requires assistance in the form of coaches or advisors and the use of an assortment of tracking and evaluation tools.

“By way of example, individuals are increasingly responsible for managing their own personal retirement accounts, which may be supplemented by employer contributions. Individual accountholders may be ill-equipped to optimize retirement accounts, as the lengthy term of the account increases sensitivity to asset allocation, contribution strategies, withdraw strategies, and changes in supplemental retirement benefits. For example, market conditions and/or a projected retirement date may require specific adjustments to the asset allocation of the account. Additionally, contribution and withdrawal policies may change. For example, taxes may be adjusted or assessed differently from year to year. As a result, many participants in financial plans, such as employer-provided 401(k) plans, would benefit from enrollment in a financial planning system that provides enhanced service, such as improved recommendations and visualization tools. However, at least some known financial planning systems, in attempting to provide a more sophisticated set of tools for the user, present a dramatically different and/or more complex user interface as compared to the basic 401(k) plan management interface to which many users are accustomed. As a result, many ordinary participants may be dissuaded from enrolling in, or continuing to stay enrolled in, such enhanced services.

“Similar challenges arise in other fields, such as the health and wellness field and education. Managing personal health, for example, can be a complex undertaking with many interwoven aspects. To the extent an individual has a health-related goal (e.g., weight loss, fitness improvement, strength development, etc.), meaningfully managing a plan for achieving the goal can include tracking and analyzing dietary habits, exercise and physical activity, and sleep, among other things. Beyond tracking such information, many individuals lack the necessary expertise to develop and revise a plan for achieving health-related goals and to modify an existing plan that may be suboptimal or ineffective. While many individuals rely on various software applications and tracking tools, such tools are often too narrow (e.g., focusing on only one aspect of health), too general (e.g., not taking into account a specific individuals needs or preferences), or too sophisticated for untrained individuals or non-experts to meaningfully use. As a result, and like the case of the financial planning system noted above, individuals can be dissuaded from starting or adhering to a broader health plan.

“Moreover, while some known conventional planning systems provide recommendations to users, such recommendations can be problematic. For example, some conventional systems generate large number of recommendations that overwhelm the ordinary user, make recommendations that are too complex for the ordinary user to grasp, and/or suggest recommendations that result in changes that appear extreme to the ordinary user and that the user is therefore less likely to adopt. As a result, users of such known systems may be unable or unwilling to take steps to improve progress along their respective plan and toward their intended goal.

“In addition, many participants in a financial plan desire to obtain assistance from services representatives, such as in a phone call or on-line chat, rather than using such enhanced services directly. However, the user interface for service representative often varies from the user interface visible to participants, increasing a difficulty for the representative to explain precisely how suggested changes would appear to the participant. On the other hand, if the services representative is limited to seeing solely the user interface that is/would be provided to the participant, the services representative may not have ready access to additional information needed to answer questions or fully explain options to the participant.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent application, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “In one aspect of the present disclosure, a computer-implemented method is provided that includes presenting a graphical user interface (GUI) having a visual representation of projections over time for a user. The method further includes calling a planning engine through an application programming interface (API). Calling the planning engine causes the planning engine to retrieve user profile data of the user, generate a predicted outcome for the user based on the user profile data, and return the predicted outcome to the GUI. The method further includes receiving the predicted outcome from the planning engine and updating the visual representation based on the predicted outcome.

“In another aspect of this disclosure, a computer system is provided. The computer system includes one or more processors and memory storing thereon instructions. When executed by the one or more processors, the instructions cause the one or more processors to execute a process including presenting a GUI having a visual representation of projections over time for a user. The process further includes calling a planning engine through an API where calling the planning engine causes the planning engine to retrieve user profile data of the user, generate a predicted outcome for the user based on the user profile data, and return the predicted outcome to the GUI. The process also includes receiving the predicted outcome from the planning engine and updating the visual representation based on the predicted outcome.

“In another aspect of the present disclosure, at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage media includes computer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to execute a process including presenting a GUI having a visual representation of projections over time for a user. The process further includes calling a planning engine through an API where calling the planning engine causes the planning engine to retrieve user profile data of the user, generate a predicted outcome for the user based on the user profile data, and return the predicted outcome to the GUI. The process also includes receiving the predicted outcome from the planning engine and updating the visual representation based on the predicted outcome.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: presenting a graphical user interface (GUI), the GUI including a visual representation of projections over time for a user; calling a planning engine through an application programming interface (API), wherein, calling the planning engine causes the planning engine to: retrieve user profile data of the user; generate a predicted outcome for the user based on the user profile data; and return the predicted outcome to the GUI; receiving the predicted outcome from the planning engine; and updating the visual representation based on the predicted outcome.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the planning engine is one of a plurality of planning engines and each planning engine of the plurality of planning engines is callable through a respective API.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the planning engine is dynamically reconfigurable by providing different sets of initialization parameters to the planning engine.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein calling the planning engine includes providing an initialization parameter to the planning engine and wherein, calling the planning engine and providing the initialization parameter causes the planning engine to be reconfigured using the initialization parameter.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein calling the planning engine includes providing a modified value of a field in the user profile data and wherein, when called, the planning engine substitutes a current value in the field in the user profile data for the modified value when generating the predicted outcome.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein calling the planning engine causes the planning engine to execute a simulation using a graphics processing unit (GPU).

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving a recommendation from an opportunity rules engine executable independent of the planning engine, wherein the opportunity rules engine generates the recommendation by: traversing a predefined and ordered list of candidate modifications to the user profile data of the user; and identifying a highest ordered candidate modification of the predefined and ordered list of candidate modifications not implemented by the user; and updating the GUI based on the recommendation, wherein updating the GUI includes each of updating a dynamic text field to include a description of the recommendation and updating functionality of a control within the GUI to direct the user to a portion of the GUI for implementing the recommendation.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user profile data includes financial data and the predicted outcome is at least a portion of retirement income for a specific retirement year.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the planning engine is a first planning engine and the predicted outcome is a first predicted outcome, the computer-implemented method further comprising: calling a second planning engine through a second API; receiving a second predicted outcome from a second planning engine; and updating the visual representation based on the second predicted outcome.

“10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the GUI includes an interactive control configured to be manipulated by the user to provide modified values for the user profile and the GUI is configured to transmit the modified values through a corresponding API to update the user profile.

“11. A computer system comprising: one or more processors; and memory storing thereon instructions that, as a result of being executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to execute a process including: presenting a graphical user interface (GUI), the GUI including a visual representation of projections over time for a user; calling a planning engine through an application programming interface (API), wherein, calling the planning engine causes the planning engine to: retrieve user profile data of the user; generate a predicted outcome for the user based on the user profile data; and return the predicted outcome to the GUI; receiving the predicted outcome from the planning engine; and updating the visual representation based on the predicted outcome.

“12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the planning engine is dynamically reconfigurable by providing different sets of initialization parameters to the planning engine.

“13. The computer system of claim 11, wherein calling the planning engine includes providing an initialization parameter to the planning engine and wherein, calling the planning engine and providing the initialization parameter causes the planning engine to be reconfigured using the initialization parameter.

“14. The computer system of claim 11, wherein calling the planning engine includes providing a modified value of a field in the user profile data and wherein, when called, the planning engine substitutes a current value in the field in the user profile data for the modified value when generating the predicted outcome.

“15. The computer system of claim 11, wherein calling the planning engine causes the planning engine to execute a simulation using a graphics processing unit (GPU).

“16. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the process further includes: receiving a recommendation from an opportunity rules engine executable independent of the planning engine, wherein the opportunity rules engine generates the recommendation by: traversing a predefined and ordered list of candidate modifications to the user profile data of the user; and identifying a highest ordered candidate modification of the predefined and ordered list of candidate modifications not implemented by the user; and updating the GUI based on the recommendation, wherein updating the GUI includes each of updating a dynamic text field to include a description of the recommendation and updating functionality of a control within the GUI to direct the user to a portion of the GUI for implementing the recommendation.

“17. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage media that includes computer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to execute a process including: presenting a graphical user interface (GUI), the GUI including a visual representation of projections over time for a user; calling a planning engine through an application programming interface (API), wherein, calling the planning engine causes the planning engine to: retrieve user profile data of the user; generate a predicted outcome for the user based on the user profile data; and return the predicted outcome to the GUI; receiving the predicted outcome from the planning engine; and updating the visual representation based on the predicted outcome.

“18. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein calling the planning engine includes providing an initialization parameter to the planning engine and wherein, calling the planning engine and providing the initialization parameter causes the planning engine to be reconfigured using the initialization parameter.

“19. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein calling the planning engine includes providing a modified value of a field in the user profile data and wherein, when called, the planning engine substitutes a current value in the field in the user profile data for the modified value when generating the predicted outcome.

“20. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein the process further includes: receiving a recommendation from an opportunity rules engine executable independent of the planning engine, wherein the opportunity rules engine generates the recommendation by: traversing a predefined and ordered list of candidate modifications to the user profile data of the user; and identifying a highest ordered candidate modification of the predefined and ordered list of candidate modifications not implemented by the user; and updating the GUI based on the recommendation, wherein updating the GUI includes each of updating a dynamic text field to include a description of the recommendation and updating functionality of a control within the GUI to direct the user to a portion of the GUI for implementing the recommendation.”

For additional information on this patent application, see: Cosmano, Brian; Hersch, Jeremy; Hough, Sean; O’Connell, Paul; Probetts, Daryl. Outcome Prediction Systems And User Interfaces For Customizable User Plans. U.S. Patent Application Number 20230237582, filed March 22, 2023 and posted July 27, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(20230237582)&db=US-PGPUB&type=ids

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