According to Jane Fraser, Citi CEO, AI will be needed both for financial gain and defensively, as both the industry and threat actors use it for revenue growth.
“There are two races in AI at the moment,” she told the South China Morning Post.
“One is to apply AI to the business models, which we all have to do as that will help drive revenue growth.”
The first of the two aforementioned races is the ability for financial firms to translate AI implementation into increased revenue streams. Fraser said that AI was already improving banking efficiency at Citi and that other elements of AI are helping it, like other banks, drive growth.
“There are a lot of different elements of it that are helping drive growth,” she added, saying that AI was assisting Citi in becoming “more efficient and make customer service better”.
The second race is one of ecosystem stability and security, bolstering firms against the growing number of cyber threats.
Fraser acknowledged that AI is lowering the barrier to entry for criminals into scams, cyber crime and fraud, and that the financial services sector would need to rush to ensure firms are secure against these threats.
“These AI models are very powerful, and our job is to make sure the financial system, the bank, our customers and the ecosystem we operate in are secure,” she said, adding that Citi itself had made “a lot of investment to make sure that fraud, money laundering, cyber and others don’t become a problem”.
Fraser said that while AI will likely impact jobs and workers as firms increasingly use it instead of human workers, the shift will result in new jobs being created. However, the transition process might not time the two perfectly.
“There will be job dislocations,” Fraser said.
“The nature of many jobs is going to change.”
“[I] remember when I was an analyst – I spent time photocopying microfiche in the library and faxing it to New York – so the jobs will change and there will be new jobs created,” she added, citing her own experience.
“The challenge is going to be the puts and takes. I really do see a lot of AI augmenting human beings, but there will be some dislocations as well.”
“I don’t want to give the impression that everything will be perfectly timed. It won’t. But we will tell everyone, please use the tools. Our people are very adaptable.”
Her comments come after Citigroup terminated 3,500 staff in mainland China as part of the bank’s attempt to reduce expenses.
Citi has also increased its AI spending, raising its global AI capital expenditure and revenue forecasts for the 2026 to 2030 period from an expected US$8 trillion to US$8.9 trillion.
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