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Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has announced a major job cull as it begins implementing AI as part of its workforce.
The country’s largest bank said it would be making at least 45 roles redundant in the wake of its push to use AI, and only a month after it announced that it had launched a new customer assistance AI voice bot system.
“Our investment in technology, including AI, is making it easier and faster for customers to get help, especially in our call centres,” a CBA spokesman said regarding the voice bot.
“By automating simple queries, our teams can focus on more complex customer queries that need empathy and experience.
“To meet the changing needs of our customers ... we review the skills we need and how we’re organised to deliver the best customer experiences and outcomes. That means some roles and work can change.”
Earlier this month, the CBA also cut 304 staff of its 38,000 in Australia, before creating 110 new jobs in India, which critics have said is the bank’s push to lower labour costs by pushing work offshore, despite record profits of $9.8 billion in the 2024 and 2025 fiscal year.
The latest announcement of cuts is the first time the Australian Finance Sector Union (FSU) has been notified of redundancies related to AI.
“Just when we think CBA can’t sink any lower, they start cutting jobs because of AI on top of sneakily offshoring work to India,” said FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano.
“If this is what [CBA CEO] Matt Comyn calls productivity, we’re seriously concerned about his place at the national productivity roundtable.”
“Workers want a tech-savvy bank, but they expect to be part of the change, not replaced by it.”
“There is a human cost to this. You can’t just replace frontline jobs with a voice bot and expect the same service for customers.”
According to Angrisano, unions will push for workplace AI regulation at the upcoming government productivity summit in August.
Additionally, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) assistant secretary Joseph Mitchell said today (29 July) that unions will be pursuing mandatory notification and consultation with employees for companies looking to implement AI.
“We can realise the potential productivity benefits of AI while protecting the Australian fair go in the AI age. But we can’t wish away the major disruptions and social risks that the bad use of AI and other new tech poses, through massive job losses and the theft of creative and intellectual property by big tech companies,” said Mitchell, as seen by HR Leader, Cyber Daily’s sister brand.
“Working people will not embrace AI if their key concerns, such as job security, are left unprotected.”
Mitchell added that businesses that do not adhere to the agreements should have their government funding stripped.
“If an employer does not have an AI implementation agreement in place with their workers, that company should not be eligible for government funding, such as research and development incentives or government contracts,” he said.
Innes Willox, Australian Industry Group chief executive, said the unions have a very narrow view of AI in the workplace and that their requests dampen innovation.
“The disappointing thing was we had the union movement come out … and basically say, well, there’s nothing to see here and that is all about cutting jobs and cutting wages and it demonstrably isn’t,” he said in an interview with Sky News.
“There’s always this fear with the advent of AI, I would say, that jobs are going to be lost. Of course they are. I mean, I wouldn’t go with the anthropic bosses, perhaps worst case now, 20 per cent of white-collar jobs in the next, you know, five to 10 years, but the reality is that if we don’t embrace it, it’s going to be forced upon us anyway.”
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