Citi wants its AI to talk about money 24/7—just don’t expect it to replace your wealth advisor’s decisions any time soon.
In April, Citi launched Citi Sky, an always-on, AI-powered member of the Citi Wealth team, built on technology from Google Cloud and Google DeepMind. This launch marks a major shift in the industry from transactional digital banking to an intelligence-based, interactive future for wealth management.
Built on an agentic AI infrastructure, City Sky prioritizes high-confidence, hyper-personalized advice, positioning AI as a powerful force multiplier for the human financial advisor rather than a replacement. It is designed to transform how US clients access market insights, act on opportunities and engage with their advisors, creating a more intuitive, responsive and personalized experience.
Key features at launch include financial guidance and support, providing guidance, such as market event signals and market insights from Citi Wealth’s Chief Investment Officer; Conversational interactions enabled by Google DeepMind’s real-time avatar technology and Gemini’s live audio and video models; And multilingual support, launching in English and Spanish before expanding to other languages.
From data to communication
Andy Sieg, head of wealth at Citi, emphasized the transformative role of technology. “AI can do a lot for our clients,” he says. “It can synthesize huge amounts of data, provide real-time insights, engage with them around the clock, and provide instant reassurance and assistance on their financial lives. That’s a huge advancement. But it doesn’t make the human advisor obsolete; it makes the human role more essential.”
Sieg said AI frees advisors from being “merely repositories of client data – i.e. table stakes.”
City Sky significantly reduces the administrative and operational burden of historically limited advisory capabilities, such as answering simple questions or scheduling meetings.
Elevating the advisor to the position of “final arbiter of intent” is central to the strategy. Although City Sky can confirm whether a customer is financially well, a human advisor is required to answer, “What does being financially well mean to you, and what should we do next to ensure you have complete financial confidence going forward?”
This partnership between AI and human advisors is the future of wealth management.