Citi is launching a new AI training program aimed at teaching hundreds of thousands of employees how to write better prompts to supply banks' generative AI programs.
In shared internal notes American bankersTim Ryan, head of technology and business enablement at City, and Anand Selva, chief operating officer of the bank, spotlighted the need for well-written prompts and introduced essential AI training for the majority of its workforce. The memo was sent to 175,000 employees in 80 locations. American bankers It was reported on Tuesday. Global Bank had around 229,000 employees as of the fourth quarter last year.
A city representative said luck This training was confirmed to aim to improve AI promotion among employees.
“This training is to teach your colleagues the possibilities of basic prompts to produce impactful results,” said Peter Fox, City's Head of Learning. luck. He added that the module uses an adaptive learning platform that adjusts training based on employee knowledge levels. “The experts can complete it in under 10 minutes, but the beginners can take about 30 minutes.”
Citi reported extensive employee involvement with Memo's AI technology, saying so far this year, employees have entered more than 6.5 million prompts into the built-in tool.
“A well-made prompt can accelerate your work, promote surface insights and amplify your impact so that the right questions on the client's pitch can reveal clarity and create benefits,” Ryan and Selva said in a company's note. American bankers.
Experts say luck Democratization of AI skills among workers is a major cultural change in the banking industry and other white-collar industries.
“People may wonder if they're going to be a consumable,” Christina Muller, a workplace mental health expert and consultant at R3 Continuum, told National HR and Workplace Behavioral Health Agency. luck. “Training is important to strengthen that AI is intended to be a co-pilot rather than a replacement for an already flying plane.”
Citi's training announcement comes a week after Accenture CEO Jule Sweet said her company is withdrawing employees who cannot rely on new technologies. Similarly, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon recently said that AI will affect “almost every job” of retailers around the world.
City's widespread adoption of AI “will turn work that once took several hours and minutes,” an internal memo said. “The scale isn't merely impressive. It marks the beginning of a new way of working.”
The AI training obligation is a useful starting point, but it does not produce meaningful results in the financial industry, Gary Lamach, and ELB Learning strategies and growth SVPs. luck.
“Too many organizations treat AI as a checkbox, launching tools, deploying one-off training, calling it a transformation,” Lamach added. “That's when the implementation fails.”
City's essential AI prompt training is part of the “continuous upskilling process we provide to all employees.” The company offers additional training for its employees to learn more about AI in general.
Many of Citi's competitors have already banked their AI training investments.
JPMorgan has made AI training a mandatory part of its mandatory onboarding since 2024, including rapid engineering and AI tool literacy. Bank of America reported in April that over 90% of the 213,000 powerful global workforce is leveraging AI tools in daily work, driven by both inter-sectoral voluntary and necessary training modules. Wells Fargo trained 4,000 employees in Stanford's human-centered AI program.
In early 2024, Wells Fargo Cio Chintan Mehta added that Fargo, the company's virtual assistant app, has handled 20 million exchanges since its launch in March 2023, and that AI applications could potentially process over 100 million people a year as technology develops.
But Lamach said technology is as good as the people piloting them. Continuous investment in people separates companies from checklists that guide employees into the new reality of their business and AI implementation of companies, he added.
“The future of finances is defined not by the tools themselves, but by leaders who make it purposeful for people to use it,” Lamach said.
