AI has to prove its value in people’s lives. Too often it is presented as something people must accept, or as a tool for companies to lower costs. Both miss the point. The question is whether AI helps Australia become more capable and Australians more prosperous.
This week the Commonwealth Bank is hosting its first Accelerate AI conference, bringing together 800 customers, technologists, policymakers and global AI builders to test what is already working, where the risks are, and how Australian organisations can use AI to serve customers better, save time and build stronger businesses.
Australia starts from a position of strength: a world-class research base, stable institutions, abundant energy and natural resources, predictable rule of law and deep security partnerships. But strengths on paper are not the same as strategic advantage. We can build with Australian resources, data, talent and enterprise, or become a permanent renter of intelligence from offshore.
At Commonwealth Bank, that test starts with customers. Public confidence has to be earned again in each generation. Today, that means using AI to help protect customers from scams and fraud, improve service and make the bank easier to deal with.
Australians are right to be cautious. AI is powerful, uneven and often hard to explain. The test is not whether a bank can deploy the technology. It is whether customers can see safer payments, faster help, better decisions and support backed by human judgement.
AI-enabled fraud and scam protection has helped reduce customer losses. Agentic systems are helping write fraud rules, strengthen security patching and solve technology issues faster. In the coming months, we will introduce new AI-enabled services for retail and business customers, designed to make more natural, personalised support available to more customers.
Better service does not have to mean every interaction is automated. Used well, new technology can make support more useful, more personal and available to more people, without making service feel less human.
We are working with some of the best AI partners in the world to help our people work closer to the frontier, on problems that really matter to customers. The most important capability we build will sit with people who know our customers, understand our systems, exercise judgement and learn how to use these tools well.
The workforce debate is often reduced to a simple narrative. Across the market, AI is being folded into several different forces at once, including genuine automation, cyclical pressure, earlier hiring decisions and attempts to force faster change by reducing headcount first. That may create pressure for change, but it can also weaken capability if people are not brought with it. The better question is whether AI is being used to make an organisation stronger, or merely to strip out costs.
Efficiency matters. It helps us serve customers better, invest through the cycle and compete for capital.
But durable performance in banking depends on operating excellence, disciplined investment, better risk decisions and better customer experiences. There is a crucial distinction between building a stronger organisation and simply making it smaller. AI should help lift productivity in ways that improve customer and employee experiences faster, strengthen risk management and make work more valuable.
CBA is investing $2.4 billion annually in technology and capability, at least $500 million more each year than other major Australian banks. We are not simply buying generic intelligence. We are strengthening advantages that are hard to replicate: customer relationships at scale, deep knowledge of the Australian economy, secure use of data and the everyday banking relationships we earn with customers.
For Australia, productivity is the clearest path to lifting real wages and living standards over time. Used well, AI can help small businesses reduce administration, carers spend more time with people than paperwork, and institutions detect economic crime earlier. Used poorly, it can leave value and capability flowing offshore.
AI will have workforce consequences throughout the economy, and they should be faced directly. No one knows exactly how work will change over the next three years, let alone the next decade. Some tasks will be automated, some roles will reduce in number and others will grow. Many roles may look much the same while the tasks and skills underneath them change. It is easier to foresee which parts of today’s work may disappear than to imagine all the new work that may be created.
This will mean real change for people. At CBA, as in many large organisations, some work will be done by smaller teams. At the same time, some career paths will steepen as people use AI to take on more complex work sooner. This will create opportunities for many people, but it will be demanding for everyone. Pretending otherwise does not protect workers. It only ensures they are surprised later.
For many of our people, it will also be one of the most important opportunities of their careers to learn new skills and do more valuable work. People who combine customer understanding, risk judgement, curiosity and the ability to direct AI systems will become more valuable, not less. Our job is to help more people get there.
When a role disappears, it affects a household budget, a mortgage, a career plan and, for many people, a sense of identity. Saying AI is good for national productivity does not make loss painless. But pretending every role can be preserved would not be fair either. An employer of our scale has a responsibility to avoid false reassurance and give people the best possible chance to adapt.
Our commitment to our people is practical: early visibility into how work is changing, investment in skills and reskilling pathways, internal mobility through real work, and supporting people with dignity where roles change or end. We have backed that with a $90 million Future Workforce Program. Change will not be painless, so it must be handled with care.
That responsibility extends beyond the workplace. If Australia wants AI capability built here, our rules need to recognise the value of Australian journalism, creative work and intellectual property while giving responsible investment a clear path to happen here. AI investment is mobile and will favour countries with practical, predictable rules. The goal is not to choose between creators and technology. It is to protect rights, support Australian content and give Australia more influence over the systems people and businesses will rely on.
Global partnerships are essential, and CBA will keep investing in them. The best partnerships build Australian capability, not substitute for it. Workforce and technology decisions should be guided by capability, resilience and customer outcomes, not cost alone. Where Australian AI capability is competitive, we should back it.
AI will not deliver a better future for Australia by accident. We have to choose it and build it through safeguards that work, people ready to use the tools, strong global partnerships and more capability created here. At CBA, that is the path we are taking. We will certainly not get everything right. But the bigger mistake would be to let caution become delay and miss the chance to build the skills of our people, a stronger company and a more capable Australia.
Matt Comyn is Chief Executive of Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
This article first appeared in The Australian Financial Review and is republished with permission.
