How Mirae's Swarup Mohanty used AI to recalibrate his retirement plan

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Swarup Mohanty spent 15 years building what he thought was a solid retirement plan. Then he asked an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to stress-test it.

He realized there were gaps.The vice-chairman and chief executive officer of Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India), who manages one of the country's largest mutual fund houses, discovered through AI-driven simulations that his assumed 6% annual withdrawal rate from his retirement corpus could quietly erode his principal if equity markets stayed flat for just three consecutive years.The math showed that in a range-bound market, withdrawals wouldn't be funded by returns—they'd start eating into the corpus itself."Even after spending 15 years planning retirement, the AI pointed out mathematical flaws I had overlooked. That was a fascinating learning," said Mohanty, 55, who has since cut his withdrawal assumption to 4%, stepped up monthly contributions, and has built a separate three-year withdrawal buffer to avoid redeeming long-term investments during weak markets.Mohanty describes himself as "paranoid" about retirement.

Longevity risk — the possibility of outliving one's money—sits at the centre of his thinking."People are going to live longer. Most people plan for life till 80 post-retirement.

If they start to live beyond that and there is no planning for that, it can start to really pinch," he said. "Besides this, if I have worked so hard during my working life, I should have a better life in my retirement."His target is a corpus large enough to sustain inflation-adjusted lifestyle expenses in his post-retirement life.