The Commonwealth Bank has come under fire for integrating artificial intelligence into its systems with a union leader labelling its move ‘disrespectful and tricky’.
The bank is currently conducting a trial of a ChatGPT-style platform, known as Hey CommBank, on staff members who are also customers.
The platform would assist customers with their inquiries with the move raising fears local call centre staff could be replaced, the Australian Financial Review reported.
Daily Mail Australia understands the bank has no intentions of replacing its call centre staff.
Commonwealth Bank has also been using AI to monitor calls – replacing the older method of recording them so staff could listen and offer training.
Finance Sector Union assistant secretary Nicole McPherson claimed the plans were beneath Australia’s largest financial institution.
‘Once again, AI is being introduced into the workplace without any consultation with workers or customers,’ she said.
A CBA spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the bank had a ‘consistent track record of investing in technology and our people’.
The Commonwealth Bank has come under fire for integrating artificial intelligence into its systems with a union leader labelling its move ‘disrespectful and tricky’ (stock image)
‘We are using AI as a complementary technology to assist with time consuming, manual tasks to free up our people to help our customers with more complex needs,’ he said.
‘The combination of our people’s expertise and AI tools is providing better service outcomes for our customers while enhancing the skills and responsiveness of our people who serve them.
‘We value and continue to invest in our people and we are committed to discussing in advance any future changes that may impact them.’
The bank is the first company to use an ‘AI factory’, implemented in collaboration with Amazon Web Services.
CBA chief data and analytics officer Andrew McMullan said customers would become ‘so familiar with using ChatGPT-style services that it becomes the way that they interact with the bank as well, through our digital channels’.
‘We are trying to understand what the engagement is like, how those agents would interact with customers, and are making sure that we’re very responsible,’ Dr McMullan said.
He said the bank is implementing ‘safety guardrails’ to ensure customers are protected.
Dr McMullan said an example of how customers could use Hey CommBank would be to calculate the amount required in savings to buy a property in a particular postcode.
He said customers would receive conversational ChatGPT-style answers.
The bank is the first company to use an ‘ AI factory’, implemented in collaboration with Amazon Web Services
CBA has already implemented AI, trialling Microsoft’s generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbot, Copilot, with staff using it to summarise text and market research, among other tasks.
AI is used in CBA’s internal service desks to handle IT issues.
The bank is also using AI to monitor the 50,000 daily customer calls to its local call centres instead of recording them.
Dr McMullan said AI can provide a transcript of a customer call in 1.2 seconds and judge whether the caller had a satisfactory experience dealing with the bank.
Currently CBA has over 2,400 call centre employees, who interact with customers by instant messaging and over the phone.
