By Matt Coyle, Head of Product @ CEM
As we’re all witnessing firsthand, AI is quickly being integrated into the way we work every day. At CEM, we’ve been watching this shift closely and asking ourselves, “What specific problem can AI help solve for our CEM subscribers?”
The short answer is that you told us. First, you wanted faster access to the insights in your CEM report. Second, you wanted even richer insights. We also took the opportunity to add a few bells and whistles.
As you know, our benchmarking reports have a lot of depth to them, but sometimes finding the exact insight you need, when you need it, often means flipping through pages or reaching out to ask one of our Analysts or Relationship Managers. We’re always here to help, but we wanted to provide a way to get the insights you’re looking for faster, as an intermediary step before having to reach out to an expert on our team. As convenience and speed are great, the most important part for us was to ensure that your data is secure, private, and held within a walled garden.
The answer to that question is what has become CEM Query.
We first unveiled Query at the Global Pension Administration Conference in Toronto. Check out the launch video here. Since then, it has been through months of internal stress-testing and hands-on trials with CEM subscribers. This past September, we began rolling it out to subscribers who have received their most recent rebranded reports. The first wave of a broader launch across our fund groups is scheduled for 2027, starting with the defined benefit administration space. Query can answer questions about anything in your reports, data integrity topics from our Opening the Black Box series, or the data you access through CEM Connect.
CEM Query is currently included in your CEM subscription fees.
What makes CEM Query especially interesting is how naturally it can help clients engage with their own information. Here are some highlights of what CEM Query can do:
- Quickly locate insights. CEM Query can read and interpret the charts already in your report, on CEM Connect or in the supporting materials
- Creates new views. CEM Query can build new charts on request, in whatever format you need, even if they never appeared in the original document.
- Speak in your language. Ask it a question in any language, get an answer in that language, even though the underlying reports are written in English.
- Get smarter because you tell it when it’s wrong and right. Whether it’s a thumbs up, thumbs down, or a line of written feedback, every reaction is captured and fed back into making CEM Query sharper for everyone.
Query also allows us to streamline the Management Insight Report (MIR), formerly the Executive Summary, which is the clearest expression of our rebrand. The two work together. The MIR is built for validation: a concise view that confirms where you stand. Query is built for decision-making: the place to dig deeper, ask follow-up questions, and explore the detail behind the headline numbers.
You might be asking yourself, “Why not just use Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT, or Claude?” Two reasons. First, Query is purpose-built around your data, with no open internet access and no blending of outside sources into its answers. What you get back is grounded entirely in your own reporting. Second, Query is wired directly into CEM’s ecosystem; today, that means CEM Connect (formerly PIN), with CEM Monitor (formerly Dashboard) coming soon, so it only gets more useful as we work to develop Query further.
Privacy remains central to how CEM Query has been built. Your data continues to live securely within a walled garden. CEM accesses OpenAI’s GPT 5.4 exclusively through Microsoft Foundry within CEM’s private Azure environment, and no CEM or client data is ever used to train, retrain, or improve the model.
We think CEM Query represents a genuine shift in how you’ll interact with CEM’s data moving forward. With faster access to insights and a more interactive way to engage with your information, we think that this will provide a more intuitive way to explore CEM’s insights.
Our goal is for CEM Query to become a meaningful part of how clients work with CEM, supporting better questions, clearer answers, and deeper understanding.
If you’d like early access to CEM Query’s beta environment, or just have questions, please reach out to me directly at matt@explorecem.com.