MLC Expand taps private equity owner's US network on AI

MLC Expand's new private equity owner is helping the platform leverage its US network to fast-track its AI capabilities, chief executive Liz McCarthy said.

Insignia Financial, MLC Expand's parent company, was acquired by New York-based CC Capital earlier this year and delisted from the ASX on April 29.

Speaking to Financial Standard, McCarthy said the new owners are very interested in MLC Expand's technology and in using AI to advance it.

"They've introduced us to some very interesting people in the US who are, I'd say, about four years ahead of us in terms of AI, and that's giving us an opportunity to think about both the promise and the perils of AI," McCarthy said.

"How to govern it is a very big topic at the moment, so you can move at speed safely. I'm lapping it up. I'm actually off to the US next week for a board meeting with them, and they've introduced me to a whole stack of people to meet."

McCarthy pointed to agentic workflows as one example. Expand treats AI agents as "digital workers", monitoring them as it would staff, while making sure they operate within a strict governance framework as they begin interacting with one another.

"We treat them like human beings in the service centre. Have they turned up? Are they working the way they want to work? What are their names?" she said.

"You need to make sure they're working within a framework... because they take off so quickly. It's exponential growth, and this is just the warm-up."

She said the new ownership had given MLC Expand a more global perspective, at a time when Australia's retirement market is set to grow rapidly.

"Come 2030, the Australian pension market will be the second biggest in the world, behind the US. It's massive," she said.

"And yet, I feel sometimes we're quite insular in the way that we think about things. This partnership they have brought to the table has really given us exposure to alternate ways of thinking...often a leapfrog ahead of us, maybe three to five years in terms of AI."