The year we reimagined navigation together

As 2025 winds down, one theme defined the year more than any other: the need for clarity—not more complexity. This year brought new pressures around affordability, growing expectations for personalization, and a renewed focus on making the healthcare experience simpler and more intuitive.

Across every conversation, we heard many of the same messages: healthcare is still too complex. Members want the confidence that comes from being guided to the right care, the right resources, and the right next step in their healthcare journey. And they want all of it delivered in a way that feels connected, supportive, and easy to navigate.

We’re taking the final moments of the year to look ahead—to what matters most as you plan for 2026—and reflecting on the moments that shaped Castlight in 2025.

What we heard this year

Across conversations on calls and at meetings, conferences, and events, a few themes came through loud and clear:

Affordability remained the driving force behind many decisions. Cost conversations got longer. Budgets tightened. Leaders needed solutions that could bend the cost curve without compromising access or member experience.

Point solutions must prove their worth. Employers no longer want long lists of vendors and programs. They want clinically-validated partners that integrate seamlessly and deliver measurable engagement and outcomes.

Less choice. More curation. Current overwhelming benefits experiences require curation and clarity, not an expansion and endless options. Members need streamlined, connected guidance to the right solutions so their decisions feel supported rather than overwhelming. 

Strategic reads as you plan for 2026

We’ve rounded up some pieces designed to help you shape your strategy, focus, and benefits programs in 2026.

5 essential elements of digital healthcare ecosystems: A practical breakdown of what it takes to build a robust, integrated digital ecosystem—one that evolves with your population, simplifies the experience, and ensures members get the benefits they actually need and will use.

Navigation ROI: How guided care lowers healthcare costs: A deeper look at how smarter navigation reduces avoidable services, promotes higher-quality care, and lowers total cost.

Can benefits address social barriers?: A perspective on SDoH: what employers can influence, what they can’t, and how navigation and advocacy can close gaps that disproportionately drive cost and poor outcomes.

Beyond the brochure: Elevating your benefits communication strategy: How benefits leaders can adopt a marketer’s mindset to make benefits more understandable, actionable, and compelling for every member.

Your benefits blueprint: Steps to designing a smarter healthcare experience: A practical framework for simplifying and prioritizing a benefits design that drives value.

Moments that shaped Castlight in 2025

A new chapter: We welcomed a new CEO, Jonathan Porter, and put a refreshed focus on Castlight! 

Proof that guidance drives value: A new study found that members using Castlight Care Guides saw reduced ED visits by nearly 56% and drove $33.83 per member per month in savings. It’s the kind of validation you expect from your partners.

A stronger ecosystem: We expanded the Castlight Ecosystem with solutions that address real gaps in access, cost, and care by welcoming: 

• Leap Health: the nation’s only infusion provider designed specifically for employers, revolutionizing specialty care through transparent pricing and convenient home-based services.
• Ayble Health: virtual digestive clinic that offers unlimited access to a GI-specialized multidisciplinary care team, a suite of AI-powered nutrition and psychology programs, as well as curated wellness tools designed to drive sustainable symptom improvement.
• Noom: integrated suite of behavior-change programs—including Weight, Med with GLP-1 support, Diabetes, and Diabetes Prevention—that drive lasting metabolic health improvements and long-term, cost-effective outcomes for populations at scale.

“That’s something that we feel Castlight does better than anyone else in the industry – their ability to engage their population and get them in the right programs at the right time.”

Cody Fair, Noom Chief Commercial Officer

Each addition reflects a larger commitment: an ecosystem that improves the member experience. And keep your eyes open because we have exciting new partners coming in 2026! 

What we’re reading to prepare for 2026

To help shape a smarter, more connected year ahead, we’re tracking news and trends most likely to impact 2026:

Trends to watch in 2026: Business Group on Health forecasts key trends for 2026 impacting employer health strategies, based on work with partners and industry factors like the economy, technology, innovation, and policy. Each trend includes action steps for proactive employer preparation.

The GLP-1 revolution will continue: Balancing the cost of GLP-1 access for weight care is challenging. Covering GLP-1s could cost employers $10K per employee, or $35K per family annually. Prioritizing preventative employee wellness over reactive spending is crucial. The long-term costs of untreated obesity and its chronic conditions outweigh GLP-1 challenges. Organizations need the right tools for a benefits design that improves lives and controls costs.

Almost half of U.S. job seekers prioritize better benefits: 49% of U.S. job seekers say “better benefits” motivate their search—second only to higher pay. Health insurance (63%), paid vacation (63%), and paid sick days (59%) top the list of most-valued benefits.” Attracting employees is important, but so is employee retention.

As we reflect on 2025, one truth stands out: healthcare navigation is becoming more essential, more personal, and more integrated than ever. People don’t just need to know what benefits they have—they need help making sense of them and using them in the moments that matter. This year, we saw the impact that clear guidance, meaningful support, and thoughtful navigation can have on outcomes and experience.

Thank you for being part of our year, and for the work you do every day to support healthier, more confident members. We look forward to continuing this work with you in the year ahead.

See you in 2026!