What AI Runs On

Now that it’s fall in the northern hemisphere, many of us are looking back on summer trips that took us across cities, countries and continents. Some, like me, are already planning where to go next. While each journey is different, most depend on something we rarely think about: the infrastructure beneath us.

We notice airports, roads, railways and navigation systems most when something goes wrong. Yet they determine whether we reach our destinations efficiently and safely. 

The same is true of AI.

AI is rapidly changing how work gets done across industries. Remarkable tools are at our fingertips, especially at Citi where nearly 180,000 colleagues in 87 jurisdictions have access to Citi Stylus Workspaces, Citi Assist and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to help with their daily tasks. Having said that, our success on the journey relies on much more than access to technology.

Even with the most advanced AI, the outputs are only as good as the information it learns from and the operational discipline behind it. AI relies on trusted data and platforms supported by strong governance, controls and change management – in other words, a robust infrastructure.

Over the course of our Transformation, we rebuilt ours. 

We deployed standardized, modern and scalable platforms to support new capabilities and business growth. 

In wholesale lending, for example, our transition to Loan IQ has consolidated lending activity onto a single global platform that creates greater consistency across underwriting, transaction management and servicing activities. Without this change, we’d be bolting AI onto fragmented platforms and processes. Instead, we strategically redesigned them from start to finish, and now we can scale and implement AI with relative ease and efficiency.

We enhanced the protective layer governing our processes – our controls – strengthening the discipline that AI requires to scale responsibly. 

Our enhanced Manager's Control Assessment (MCA) process redefined what good looks like across all controls firmwide. As the AI landscape evolves at pace and demands change across our processes, these standards will evolve right there with it – ensuring safety and soundness remain at the center of everything we do. By elevating control ownership and implementing new continuous monitoring and testing measures, we can move forward knowing every process, every control across our firm is constantly being evaluated for improvements in light of the changes happening around us every day.

We made substantial progress strengthening our data foundations, building confidence in our AI outputs. 

When data is fragmented, inconsistent or difficult to trace, the quality of outcomes suffers. When data is trusted and governed, AI becomes significantly more effective. Through our Transformation, we established trusted enterprise sources for trades and transactions while enhancing governance capabilities and improving transparency across the firm, strengthening the quality of the information that AI models require to perform effectively and responsibly. 

Often, work like this doesn’t generate headlines. But this steady progress is exactly what positions us to benefit the most from AI and win as a firm. 

On our Transformation journey, we’ve proven to ourselves and the world that we can execute big changes and move together as one firm. We built the ability to establish common standards, clarify ownership, strengthen accountability and implement change at scale across businesses and functions. Scaling AI will demand those same muscles.

We’re evaluating our processes every day to reimagine, re-engineer and simplify, knowing this work will reap the most rewards for colleagues and clients in the long term.

AI will continue to evolve, new capabilities will emerge and adoption will accelerate exponentially across industries. We need to be agile to capitalize on these powerful capabilities, and we need to do so responsibly. Strengthening our infrastructure and operational rigor over the last few years has given us a significant head start. It’s now up to us to be bold and innovative as we build Citi for the next decade.