Citi Partners with Google Cloud for AI-Driven Infrastructure Modernization

Citi banks on Google Cloud as AI solutions drive up customer adoption for Alphabet division

Citi is to migrate multiple workloads and applications to Google Cloud and use the Vertex AI platform to deliver generative AI capabilities across the financial services firm. The company has a specific need to enhance the power of its markets business platforms in order to handle the complex calculations involved in trading operations. To that end, it intends to replace existing systems with cloud-based alternatives that can scale according to demand as well as reducing dependency on physical data centers. In the official announcement, Tim Ryan, Head of Technology and Business Enablement for Citi, states: Citi is on a mission to modernise our infrastructure and increase our safety and soundness so that our businesses can continue to serve our clients with speed and agility. Leveraging Google Cloud opens up a whole new frontier for us in how we can run applications with faster and more comprehensive outputs, and provide our colleagues with the tools they need to deliver for our clients. Citi is the latest large enterprise to make such a bet on Google Cloud as parent company Alphabet's quarterly earnings report highlights, with the firm's cloud business getting a healthy boost from its heavy investment in AI. For Q3, cloud revenue was up a hefty 35% year-on-year to $11.4 billion as Alphabet CEO Sundar PIchai confirmed that AI solutions are driving deeper adoption for cloud among customers: Our commitment to innovation as well as a long-term focus and investment in AI are paying off and driving success for the company and for our customers. We are uniquely positioned to lead in the era of AI because of our differentiated full stack approach to AI innovation, and we are now seeing this operate at scale. It has three components. First, a robust AI infrastructure that includes data centers, chips and a global fiber network. Second, world-class research teams who are advancing our work with deep technical AI research and who are also building the models that power our efforts. And third, a broad global reach through products and platforms that touch billions of people and customers around the world, creating a virtuous cycle. He added: Customers are leaning in this moment.Wherever we have been working, we are definitely seeing real concrete proof points delivering real impact, right, be it in their user experience, be it in the bottom line, etc..And I think customers are getting savvier. We ourselves are going through a lot of learnings, both in deploying this within Google as an enterprise and bringing those learnings to our customers outside. And as we see common patterns across the breadth of sectors we serve in, I think we are bringing those learnings. I would say, if anything, I think over time, I think organizations are beginning to understand more. They are leaning in. Our models are getting better. We are building more comprehensive solutions on top of it. So I think we are well set up for 2025, and I think there will be continued momentum in this area. How well is Google doing in cloud? Well, if we judge someone by the way their rivals attack them, then comments from Microsoft seem to suggest that the answer might be,'rather well'. In a blog post entitled Google's Shadow Campaigns, Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Rima Alaily makes a lengthy critique of Google's participation with European cloud services providers to lobby against Microsoft: Google has gone to great lengths to obfuscate its involvement, funding, and control, most notably by recruiting a handful of European cloud providers, to serve as the public face of the new organization. When the group launches, Google, we understand, will likely present itself as a backseat member rather than its leader. It remains to be seen what Google offered smaller companies to join, either in terms of cash or discounts. She adds: Google may have been late in meeting the needs of enterprise customers, but it is fully capable of competing head-to-head with AWS and Microsoft. That might be one for Google to have printed out and stuck to the office wall? Next up - Microsoft's own cloud platform numbers come into focus later today.

Citi signs with Google Cloud for AI

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. The agreement will see Citi modernise its technology infrastructure by migrating multiple workloads and applications to Google Cloud. This, says the bank, will unlock its ability to offer improved digital products, streamline employee workflows, and run high-performance computing and analytics platforms. This includes using advanced HPC capabilities to facilitate the execution of millions of computations daily in Citi's Markets business. As part of the agreement, Citi will also use Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to deliver generative AI capabilities across the company, fuelling initiatives related to developer toolkits, document processing, and digitisation. Tim Ryan, head, technology and business enablement, Citi, says: "Leveraging Google Cloud opens up a whole new frontier for us in how we can run applications with faster and more comprehensive outputs, and provide our colleagues with the tools they need to deliver for our clients."

Citi moves infrastructure to Google Cloud as part of broader AI push

Citigroup today announced a multi-year strategic partnership that will see the bank move parts of its vast financial infrastructure to a platform hosted by Alphabet subsidiary Google Cloud. New York-based Citi, the fourth largest bank in America by assets, currently relies heavily on hardware. It expects the integration to a virtual environment will make it easier to customize its financial pipes and respond to consumers' ever-changing demands. As part of the partnership, Balaji Kumar, Citi's head of global technology infrastructure, told Fortune the bank would also be using Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to build a number of financial tools for customers using artificial intelligence. Though details about which applications might launch first weren't disclosed, Kumar says "quite a few" pilots are already in the works. "It's a massive opportunity for us to engage in technology modernization," says Kumar. The infrastucture upgrade is part of a larger effort at Citi to better capitalize on the bank's financial pipes, which power much of the global economy, and comprise half of the bank's revenue. Though the partnership is still in its early days, Rohit Bhat, the managing director of Google Cloud's financial services division, says Google Cloud's engineering, product, and sales teams have been working with Citi's technology and business enablement team for months and much of the technology they've co-developed is quite mature. Top among the Google Cloud upgrades at Citi is a high performance computing (HPC) capability that will run millions of risk calculations a day for Citi's Markets business. The software is expected to reduce latency -- or delays -- by preemptively checking transactions to ensure they have enough compute power and storage to execute. Through the partnership Citi also has access to Vertex AI, the enterprise version of Google's proprietary Gemini AI, and other open source large language models (LLMs), including Gemma, Meta and Mistral. In the future, the bank anticipates using the AI tool to complete other pilots currently being developed, including for customer service and call centers, document digitization, and customized marketing tools. Implementing cloud and AI tools give rise to new security considerations, ranging from where the data comes from to who can access it. To address those concerns, Kumar says "every use case is governed and monitored and approved" before it is rolled out for public use. That includes careful analysis of the kind of data used, where is it is hosted, and whether the data is beings stored for future use or being actively used. "We're starting with the modernization platform really focused around reducing risk," says Google's Bhat. "That is the foundation layer of then how we go into some of the more innovative things we're building: new products, services and enhancing customer experience across the firm." The partnership is part of Citi CEO Jane Fraser's larger effort to highlight the role its financial infrastructure plays in the economy. Last year, Fraser reportedly reorganized the firm's business lines to emphasize the role the bank's treasury and custody services play in global finance. "The end state will be a simplified operating model," says Citi's Kumar. "Which is what our CEO and our executives have talked about quite a lot: the ability for us to meet the customers where they are, for us to be able to launch products at scale" This partnership is also part of Citi's broader AI strategy. A widely covered Citi report in June predicted that 56% of banking jobs were ripe to be displaced by AI. Four days after the report was published the bank announced a strategic investment in commercial lending AI startup Numerated to improve commercial lending analysis. Citi's stock increased 1% today. So far this year, the company's stock has increased 15% compared to a 26% increase at other U.S. banks tracked over the same period by the S&P U.S. Banks Index. Citi's partnership with Google places it in a strategically different position than some of it's competitors. The same month Citi invested in Numerated the Wall Street Journal reported that Goldman Sachs had deployed its own generative AI tool and in August Fortune exclusively reported that 14,000 BNY employees were using Eliza, a new AI named after Alexander Hamilton's wife. This isn't the first time an Alphabet subsidiary has partnered with Citi. In November 2020 Citi announced it would work with Google to offer a checking account using Google Plex, a digital checking service that was cancelled the following year. For Google Cloud, the Citi tie-up comes as the division expands efforts to help financial institutions use artificial intelligence. Perhaps most notably, in April, Google Play partnered with Discover Financial Services, the parent company that runs the Discover credit card and Discover Bank to help integrate its AI into customer services. "We believe that there is a material step function change in the ability for firms to understand the information that lives between their four walls," says Google's Bhat, "improve the customer experience that their clients are experiencing, and enable the developers to build net new experiences for their clients. That step function change is a combination of generative AI and machine learning."

Citi and Google Cloud Announce Strategic Agreement to Modernize Citi's Technology Infrastructure and Drive Innovation

- Citi will use Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to deliver generative AI capabilities across the company NEW YORK and SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Citi and Google Cloud have joined forces in a strategic, multi-year agreement to support Citi's digital strategy through cloud technology and artificial intelligence (AI). This collaboration focuses on modernizing Citi's technology infrastructure and enhancing employee and client experiences on cloud-based applications. Through the collaboration, Citi will migrate multiple workloads and applications to Google Cloud's secure and scalable infrastructure. By modernizing its technology infrastructure on Google Cloud, Citi will unlock the ability to offer improved digital products, streamline employee workflows, and run high-performance computing (HPC) and analytics platforms. This includes using advanced HPC capabilities to facilitate the execution of millions of computations daily in Citi's Markets business. As part of the agreement, Citi will also use Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to deliver generative AI capabilities across the company. With Google Cloud, Citi will be able to fuel its generative AI initiatives related to developer toolkits, document processing, and digitization capabilities to empower customer servicing teams. "Citi is on a mission to modernize our infrastructure and increase our safety and soundness so that our businesses can continue to serve our clients with speed and agility," said Tim Ryan, Head of Technology and Business Enablement for Citi. "Leveraging Google Cloud opens up a whole new frontier for us in how we can run applications with faster and more comprehensive outputs, and provide our colleagues with the tools they need to deliver for our clients." "Our strategic partnership with Citi to continue to modernize its technology infrastructure and drive enterprise-wide innovation underscores Google Cloud's commitment to helping the financial services industry transform with cloud and AI technology," said Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO. "By combining Citi's deep banking and customer experience expertise with Google Cloud's leading cloud and AI capabilities, we can deliver significant benefits to Citi's clients and employees." Google Cloud's secure infrastructure empowers financial institutions to confidently embrace digital transformation while safeguarding sensitive data and meeting stringent regulatory, policy, and business requirements. This robust foundation is built with a defense-in-depth approach, incorporating multiple layers of security such as data encryption at rest, in transit, and in use with Confidential Computing. Google Cloud also meets key industry standards through comprehensive compliance certifications like PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and SOC 2. About Citi Citi is a preeminent banking partner for institutions with cross-border needs, a global leader in wealth management and a valued personal bank in its home market of the United States. Citi does business in more than 180 countries and jurisdictions, providing corporations, governments, investors, institutions and individuals with a broad range of financial products and services. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | X: @Citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi About Google Cloud Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/citi-and-google-cloud-announce-strategic-agreement-to-modernize-citis-technology-infrastructure-and-drive-innovation-302288231.html SOURCE Google Cloud Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Citi Turns to Google Cloud to Update Digital Strategy | PYMNTS.com

"Citi is on a mission to modernize our infrastructure and increase our safety and soundness so that our businesses can continue to serve our clients with speed and agility," Tim Ryan, head of technology and business enablement for Citi, said in a news release. "Leveraging Google Cloud opens up a whole new frontier for us in how we can run applications with faster and more comprehensive outputs, and provide our colleagues with the tools they need to deliver for our clients." The partnership will see Citi migrate multiple workloads and applications to Google Cloud's secure and scalable infrastructure, letting the bank offer improved digital products, streamline employee workflows, and run high-performance computing (HPC) and analytics platforms. "This includes using advanced HPC capabilities to facilitate the execution of millions of computations daily in Citi's Markets business," the release added. In addition, Citi will use Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to deliver generative AI capabilities across the company. Google Cloud, the release added, can help Citi fuel its generative AI initiatives in areas such as developer toolkits, document processing, and digitization capabilities to empower customer servicing teams. As PYMNTS wrote recently, migrating to the cloud could present a challenge, especially for banks with legacy systems and complex regulatory requirements. The process involves not just a technological shift, but also a reconsideration of operational models and risk management strategies. Data security and compliance considerations are critical, especially when trafficking in sensitive financial information. However, the upside for financial institutions is considerable, as migrating to the cloud offers lower costs, greater efficiencies and the ability to scale up and down depending on transaction volume and data complexities. "It's an interesting time in the banking and the payments industry," Michael Lozanoff, managing director, global head of merchant services for J.P. Morgan Payments, said in an interview with PYMNTS. "Many of the systems we ran for decades have reached their shelf life. And one of the things we have done is learn from the past so we can build for the future. We have the unique opportunity to reinvent [banking infrastructure] and build it new -- as if we started from scratch."