The Commonwealth Bank has come under fire for integrating artificial intelligence into its systems, with one union leader calling the move “disrespectful and cumbersome”.
The bank is currently trialling a ChatGPT-style platform, known as Hey CommBank, with staff members who are also customers.
The platform helps customers with their queries, raising fears that local call centre staff could be replaced. Australian financial magazine reported.
Daily Mail Australia understands the bank has no intention of replacing its call centre staff.
Commonwealth Bank has also been using AI to monitor calls, replacing the old method of recording them so staff could listen to them and offer training.
Financial Sector Union assistant secretary Nicole McPherson said 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,” he said.
A CBA spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that 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 one union leader calling the move “disrespectful and misleading” (file image)
“We are using AI as a complementary technology to help with time-consuming manual tasks and 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 delivering better service outcomes for our customers while improving the skills and responsiveness of our people serving them.
“We value and continue to invest in our people and are committed to discussing in advance any future changes that may affect them.”
The bank is the first company to use a ‘AI ‘factory’, implemented in collaboration with Amazon Web Services.
Andrew McMullan, CBA’s director of data and analytics, said customers would become “so familiar with using ChatGPT-style services that it would become the way they would interact with the bank as well, through our digital channels”.
“We’re trying to understand what the engagement looks like, how those agents would interact with customers, and we’re making sure we’re being very accountable,” Dr. McMullan said.
He said the bank is implementing “safety measures” to ensure customers are protected.
Dr McMullan said one example of how customers could use Hey CommBank would be to calculate the amount of savings needed to purchase a property in a particular postcode.
He said customers would receive ChatGPT-style conversational responses.
CBA has already implemented AI, testing Microsoft’s generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbot, Copilot, with staff who use it to summarize texts and market research, among other tasks.
AI is used in CBA’s internal help desks to manage IT issues.
The bank is also using AI to monitor the 50,000 daily customer calls to its local call centers instead of recording them.
Dr McMullan said AI can provide a transcript of a customer’s call in 1.2 seconds and judge whether the caller had a satisfactory experience dealing with the bank.
CBA currently has more than 2,400 employees in its call center, who interact with customers via instant messaging and by phone.
