Bloomberg widens ASKB access with chat & file links

Bloomberg has made ASKB, the conversational AI interface on the Bloomberg Terminal, generally available. More than one-third of Terminal subscribers already use the tool.

The latest version lets users bring their own Instant Bloomberg chats, Worksheets and files into ASKB, allowing answers to draw on both Bloomberg data and client material. The system returns cited responses in plain language and links points back to source material.

The rollout extends ASKB beyond the market data and research available within the Terminal. Users can now ask it to summarise overnight conversations, identify views from contacts ahead of a policy decision, query watchlists and coverage lists by name, or compare internal research notes with outside views.

Chat integration

One of the main additions is support for Instant Bloomberg, the messaging service widely used across financial markets. Clients send roughly 40 million IB chats each day, and ASKB can now search and summarise up to three months of a user's own chat history.

The tool has been tuned to handle the shorthand and acronyms common in trading messages. Each answer is cited back to the original chat, allowing users to trace the source of a summary or specific point.

That means an analyst or portfolio manager can ask what contacts said about a company, sector or commodity during the day, or review incoming messages from overnight trading. The aim is to reduce the need to search through windows manually before starting analysis.

Lists and files

ASKB also now works with Worksheets, allowing users to query securities already held in a coverage list or watchlist without re-entering tickers. Users can ask which companies in a list report earnings in a given week, or identify top performers and biggest movers.

Another addition is Bloomberg Drive, which stores user files inside the platform. Internal research notes, investment theses, earnings recaps and other documents uploaded to Bloomberg Drive remain available in future ASKB conversations, rather than disappearing when a thread ends.

Users can ask questions about a single file, a folder or their wider library. ASKB cites the file and the relevant passage in its response, while files remain visible only to users unless shared with colleagues at the same firm.

The changes reflect a wider push by financial information providers to embed generative AI into established workflows rather than offer standalone tools. In practice, competition has centred on whether systems can produce answers users can verify against trusted underlying sources.

Bloomberg said client material remains permissioned and separate from Bloomberg sources. It positioned transparent attribution as central to user confidence in the product.

Wayne Barlow, Global Head of Core Terminal Products at Bloomberg, said the expansion addresses a long-standing gap between the information investors rely on and the tools they use to query markets.

"Every decision made by a financial professional is shaped by more than the market data in front of them. Until now, some of the most valuable information they have, including a trader's own conversations, a portfolio manager's watchlist, an analyst's research, has all lived outside the AI tools they use to make decisions," Barlow said.

"Bringing an investor's unique professional context together with Bloomberg's market intelligence, in one conversation, is what makes ASKB so powerful," he added.

Bloomberg has used AI techniques in financial data and workflow tools for years, but ASKB marks a more visible use of conversational systems inside its flagship Terminal product. The company said it has become Bloomberg's fastest-adopted product feature.

Shawn Edwards, Chief Technology Officer at Bloomberg, said users have focused on the reliability of answers and the ability to see where they came from.

"ASKB is the most advanced functionality we've ever built, and it's also been our most rapidly adopted. Clients tell us it's transforming how they work, giving them the ability to analyze markets and information they never could before," Edwards said.

"The feedback we hear most consistently is about trust: our users trust ASKB because it's built on the sources they already know and use, with every answer containing transparent attribution to exactly where it came from. This isn't Bloomberg building on AI. It's AI built on Bloomberg," he added.