How Citi is building AI from the inside out
Bank putting close to 2% of its workforce toward developing, deploying AI internally
Citi is looking inward to identify and develop new AI use cases and deploy existing AI tools within the organization.
Citi has launched two internal programs this year, AI Champions and AI Accelerators, Payal Jain, head of application engineering and platforms at the bank, told FinAi News.
The programs, comprised of more than 4,000 Citi colleagues globally, “help teams adopt tools, navigate, troubleshoot and share best practices,” Jain said.
The bank has 229,000 full-time employees, according to its third-quarter earnings report. That’s just under 1.7% of employees involved in these programs.
The $1.7 trillion bank also asks its employees to pitch ideas for gen AI uses, and tasks leaders of its business verticals to devise ideas on how to best deploy the tech within their operations, Head of AI Shobhit Varshney said at the recent Reuters’ Momentum AI Finance USA conference.
“It’s a mix of top-down and bottom-up approach,” he said.
Citi is not the only FI with AI-specific teams. Others include:
- $3.4 billion Academy Bank;
- $218 billion Citizens Bank;
- $4 trillion JPMorgan; and
- $282 million Varo Bank.
Varo Bank’s Chief AI and Data Officer Asmau Ahmed previously told FinAi News, the AI team at Varo is “enabling that AI-first bank approach from the inside out.”
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