Citi expands AI rollout to Indonesia

The bank says 80% of employees globally have adopted its AI tools.

Citigroup, Inc. has expanded its internal artificial intelligence tools to Indonesia, extending a global rollout that now covers 87 countries and jurisdictions and about 180,000 employees.

"Citi Indonesia is pioneering a new era of banking, being among the first in the country to harness the power of AI to modernise how we operate," Batara Sianturi, CEO at Citibank NA/Indonesia, told Asian Banking &Finance.

The rollout began in phases in December 2024. Employees in Indonesia now have access to Citi Stylus Workspaces, a conversational AI tool for summarising documents and web pages, and Citi Assist, which helps staff search the bank's internal policies and procedures.

Sianturi said about 80% of employees globally have adopted the AI tools, although Citi is not yet disclosing usage data for Indonesia because the rollout just began in June.

He said the bank's immediate priority is helping employees incorporate the tools into their daily work. Sianturi said AI is meant to support, not replace, employee decision-making.

"AI is not a replacement for human judgement, but a tool that can strengthen the way we work and the processes across the bank," he said in an emailed reply to questions.

The bank expects the tools to reduce the time employees spend preparing documents and searching for internal information.

Sianturi said treasury and cash management could benefit from AI through faster processing of complex tasks, letting bankers spend more time advising clients.

The AI tools are used internally, so institutional clients will not interact with them directly.

Instead, Sianturi said automating routine work should allow relationship managers and bankers to respond to clients more quickly and spend more time on advisory work.

Citi is treating AI as a long-term investment rather than measuring success against short-term revenue or cost targets, he said.

Future development in Indonesia will focus on adding more AI features to the bank's platforms, subject to regulatory approvals.

The expansion reflects a broader push by global banks to use generative AI to automate internal work such as document drafting, information retrieval, coding assistance, and knowledge management, whilst keeping final decisions with employees.