IBM and Citigroup have teamed up to explore the ways technology used in IBM’s Jeopardy!-winning supercomputer Watson can be applied in consumer banking services.

Watson, named after IBM’s founder Thomas Watson, is a computing system that can easily and accurately recognize human language and use the information received to make decisions based on what it was told and on analysis of large volumes of data it has access to.

Citi is looking at using Watson technology to create a machine that interacts with its customers and uses deep-content analytics, language recognition and evidence-based learning to help customers make financial decisions, IBM said.

Don Callahan, Citi’s chief administrative officer and chief operations and technology officer, said the company was rethinking and redesigning the ways its customers interacted with money.

“We will collaborate with IBM to explore how we can use the Watson technology to provide our customers with new, secure services designed around their increasingly digital and mobile lives,” Callahan said.

The companies are working to apply Watson in the consumer financial market to help financial professionals make better decisions. Targeted services include identifying opportunities, evaluating risks and exploring alternative actions for clients.

The name of Watson as a supercomputer entered the mainstream after the IBM machine beat past human champions in the US quiz show Jeopardy! The company has been since exploring the possibilities of applying the technology in a useful way.

In September, for example, US health benefits company WellPoint announced it was developing a Watson-based solution that would suggest diagnosis and treatment options for medical patients.

Tom Rosamilia, a Power and zSystems general manager at IBM, told DatacenterDynamics that healthcare and financial services were targets for applying Watson technology commercially. The company deliberately designed Watson on available Power 750 servers to make sure the technology that may at first glance seem esoteric and expensive makes its way into standard data centers quickly.