Unlike other industries that rely heavily on behavioral data, Federated Hermes must use a self-declaration model for website segmentation. This is a regulatory requirement to ensure specific content is role-restricted. They are building the infrastructure for future personalization but must start with this explicit user attestation.
When relaunching its website, Federated Hermes found that design elements like colors and layouts were a major point of internal contention. To resolve this, they held small, targeted workshops to gather collective feedback, enabling their agency to create a design that balanced conservative industry norms with modern aesthetics.
For its new website, Federated Hermes' immediate measure of success isn't traffic or conversion metrics. Instead, the team is focused on ensuring the project met its initial goals by addressing key stakeholder pain points. Quantitative KPIs will be evaluated later on a 3, 6, 9, and 12-month timeline.
Federated Hermes initially found their new CMS overwhelming due to the complexity required for their many financial products. However, this upfront investment in a complex setup resulted in a system that is now easy for the core team to use and train others on, enabling broader content management democratization across the firm.
In a highly regulated environment like financial services, the practical application of AI isn't about full automation. Instead, the focus is on a strategic cost-benefit analysis: determining which tasks are best suited for human capital versus AI agents or workflows to get the "best use of AI for your money."