The news: Citi has announced it will launch Citi Sky—an AI-powered virtual assistant—for its Citigold wealth management customers ($200,000 in average monthly balance) this summer. 

Citi Sky will act alongside Citi’s expert advisors and use AI from Google Cloud and DeepMind to answer client questions. It will give financial guidance and help clients make decisions through conversational interactions including voice, video, and even avatar technology, per Citi’s press release.

Why this matters: The new assistant will blur the lines between human and AI assistance while still helping to facilitate connection with Citi’s human experts. This could ease consumers’ ongoing skepticism about relying on AI to manage their financial health. 

According to a recent TD Bank survey, just 18% of US adults would trust AI to make independent financial recommendations. They still put the most trust in their friends and family, as well as their bank when gathering financial information. But by embedding AI within its advisory experience, Citi is positioning Citi Sky as a trustworthy extension of its own brand, rather than a standalone tool.

Implications for banks: Citi’s model rejects the idea that AI will replace human advisors. Instead, it uses AI to scale real-time, personalized insights alongside existing relationships. That approach could set a new standard for wealth management, where AI enhances human expertise instead of substituting it. 

If the model is successful, it will pressure banks to move beyond basic chatbots and embed AI into core advisory experiences, raising expectations for more proactive, personalized financial guidance. Institutions that fail to pair advanced AI with trusted human touchpoints risk falling behind.

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