Leading the way: How CommBank is using artificial intelligence

In recent times, the use of artificial intelligence and related technologies across various industries has proliferated, with it now playing a crucial role in many sectors. The exponential growth of data has resulted in AI becoming a critical tool for banks such as Commonwealth bank.

Customer Service

To stay ahead of the curve, Commbank uses AI technologies to enhance the customer experience. The bank’s customer engagement engine (CEE) is part of its toolkit to better understand customers and provide the best service possible. According to Dr McMullan, who is the bank’s chief Data and Analytics Officer, the CEE “makes over 35 million decisions every single day”. One specific usage example of the CEE was the creation of a purpose-built data weather model, to provide fast help to customers who have been affected by natural disasters, based on efficient support solutions.

In addition, Commbank uses powered chat tools to interact with customers and provide them with efficient, personalised customer service solutions.  The trained chatbot called Ceba, provides instant support to customers who require assistance and also has the ability to put you in touch with a human when required.

 Furthermore, the bank has a benefits finder feature which allows customers to access a range of benefits based on what they are eligible for. This feature is powered by AI and allows customers to access various forms of benefits that they may have not been aware of before.

 Fraud Detection

The bank is also heavily involved in tackling fraud detection and preventing customers from scams. Machine learning techniques are utilised to detect suspicious behaviour. When irregular patterns are detected from customer accounts, this could be a sign of accounts being compromised and Commbank’s AI detection system is trained to detect such incidents. According to Commonwealth Bank’s everyday banking executive general manager Kate Crous “[Commonwealth Bank] prevented or recovered more than $100 million in scams targeted at [their] customers”.

Risk Management

Risk management is also another area where the bank has been using AI and machine learning to improve its services. Teams build and enhance quantitative and predictive models to support a vast array of decisions. John who leads Commbank’s Financial Crime and Compliance team says “Traditionally it’s been about following risk but the way of the future is using data to predict risk, and that’s where we’re moving into.”