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The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is using its investment in AI to keep scammers actively occupied by using bots to speak with them.
In the company’s full-year results briefing earlier this month, CBA CEO Matt Comyn announced that the bank was deploying AI bots to speak with scammers, keeping them occupied instead of interacting with potential victims.
“In an Australian banking first, we have deployed thousands of AI-powered bots to actively engage scammers on voice calls and WhatsApp chats,” he said.
While acknowledging that more needs to be done to protect Australians from scammers, Comyn also said CBA had bolstered its anti-scam measures.
“We have scaled up our alert system, sending 10 times more alerts to customers this year via the CommBank app to warn them of suspicious transactions,” he said.
“We are intercepting frauds and scams earlier, and have seen the number of disputed transactions fall by more than 30 per cent as a result.
“We have also introduced a QR code-based feature for cardless withdrawals and deposits, offering a safer and more secure way to access funds.”
On the AI front, the bank is also going in headfirst, with Comyn saying that CBA has “chosen to accelerate the modernisation of our technology estate.
“We completed one of the largest and fastest data migrations of its kind in the southern hemisphere, moving 10 petabytes of data to AWS Cloud. Building world-class AI and engineering talent and capability is central to our technology ambitions, and we have hired 2,000 engineers in the past year,” he said.
“We are also providing all of our people with AI skills and tools so we can deliver the best customer experiences and outcomes. We are also investing in AI partnerships, including with Anthropic and OpenAI, to try to bring the best of AI to our customers and our teams.”
On the same day as its results, CBA announced the multi-year partnership with OpenAI, through which CBA staff will get access to “OpenAI’s advanced AI tools” such as ChatGPT and will be investing in AI training for its staff.
However, the bank’s AI adoption has been met with some controversy, after it axed at least 45 roles to make room for the technology.
“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.”
Last 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 2024–25 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.”
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