ASKB AI: What It Means for You
The Short Version
ASKB is a new conversational AI tool from Bloomberg that lets users interact with the Bloomberg Terminal using simple, plain-English questions. Instead of navigating complex menus to find financial data, users can now ask the system to find, analyze, and act on information for them. It is currently in a beta (testing) phase for finance professionals.
What Happened
Bloomberg recently introduced ASKB, a new AI-powered interface for its famous Bloomberg Terminal—the data-packed software used by financial professionals worldwide. During the Bloomberg Family Office Summit 2026, Kevin Sheekey demonstrated how this tool works.
Think of the Bloomberg Terminal like a massive, high-end cockpit filled with thousands of dials, buttons, and switches. To find specific market information, you usually need to know exactly which buttons to press. ASKB acts as an intelligent co-pilot; instead of manually searching, you can simply "talk" to the terminal as if you were asking a human researcher, and the AI goes out to find the data and perform the analysis for you.
Why should you care?
Even if you aren't a high-level investor, this change is a sign of how AI is moving from a simple "chatbot" to an "agent."
In the past, AI could only write text for you. This new "agentic" AI is designed to do things—like navigating a complex professional database to pull up specific reports or comparing market trends automatically. For the people who make big financial decisions, this means they can get answers in seconds rather than hours, potentially leading to faster reactions to world events and market shifts.
What changes for you
If you use the Bloomberg Terminal for your work, your daily workflow is about to get much more efficient. You will spend less time hunting for information in complex databases and more time making decisions based on the data the AI gathers for you. For the general public, this represents a shift toward more powerful, helpful AI assistants that can perform complex, multi-step tasks across professional software suites.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "agentic" AI?
Agentic AI is a type of technology that doesn't just answer questions; it can actually perform tasks. While a regular chatbot might just summarize a document, an agentic AI can go into a system, find the relevant documents, compare them, and present you with the final result.
Is ASKB available to everyone?
No. ASKB is designed specifically for professional users of the Bloomberg Terminal. It is currently in a "beta" phase, meaning Bloomberg is testing it with a select group of users before rolling it out more broadly.
How does this differ from tools like ChatGPT?
While ChatGPT is a general-purpose assistant, ASKB is purpose-built for high-stakes financial research. It is integrated directly into the specialized data, security, and professional environment of the Bloomberg Terminal, ensuring the information it provides is tailored for investment professionals.
The Bottom Line
Bloomberg’s new ASKB tool marks a major step forward in how we use professional software. By replacing complex manual searches with simple, intelligent conversations, Bloomberg is making high-level financial research faster and more accessible. It shows that the future of AI isn't just about chatting—it's about having a digital assistant that can actually get work done for you.
Sources
- Meet ASKB: A First Look at the Future of the Bloomberg Terminal
- Meet ASKB: Bloomberg Introduces Agentic AI to the Bloomberg Terminal
- Kevin Sheekey demos ASKB AI on Bloomberg Terminal
All technical specifications, pricing, and benchmark data in this article are sourced directly from official announcements. Competitor comparisons use publicly available data at time of publication. We update our coverage as new information becomes available.