During a recent discussion, a pressing question was posed about the measures in place to protect current employees from the risk of their positions being replaced by artificial intelligence or offshored. “I just wanted to know what specific measures, if any, you have in place now to safeguard current staff from having their roles displaced by AI, and also offshoring,” the inquiry went.

Addressing this concern, Matt Comyn, the CEO and managing director of Commonwealth Bank, acknowledged the importance of employee engagement. He emphasized the bank’s commitment to developing and retaining skills among its workforce as a top priority moving forward. “I think the way we engage with employees, how we try to develop and retain as many of those skills as we can, is really important, and that’s certainly a priority for us going forward,” Comyn stated.

Comyn also noted that sometimes the bank is faced with making challenging decisions that affect its staff. He highlighted the bank’s record-breaking profit of $10.1 billion for the year ending June 30, pointing out that this impressive figure could have been even greater had the bank more fully harnessed the potential of AI technologies.

Reflecting on the rapid technological advancements over the past decade and a half, Comyn remarked, “Fifteen years ago … we didn’t do everything on our phones.” His comment underscores the transformative impact of technology on business operations and the evolving landscape in which the bank operates.

While customers once engaged with the bank in branches during traditional opening hours, they now expected staff to be available around the clock, O’Malley said.

“So it actually makes sense to have people operating in different time zones to support that 24/7 service for our customers,” he said.

“Better customer engagement does require different ways of thinking.”

Comyn said that CBA had just over 6,800 employees in India, including 3,000 staff working to combat financial crimes, and 37,000 employees in Australia.

“It’s not that we aren’t looking in Australia and we are continuing to hire and we are bringing capability,” he said.

The bank has also opened a tech hub in Seattle, where it sends a rotating group of about 200 Australian staff each year to increase their skills.

It has also partnered with Griffith University and the University of South Australia to develop local skills.

---