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A staff member at the Commonwealth Bank who trained an AI chatbot that eventually replaced her role, faced the bank’s senior management during a meeting with shareholders.
Kathryn Sullivan was among 45 customer service staff whose jobs were terminated in late July. They were later given an opportunity to remain with the bank following the Finance Sector Union’s case to the Fair Work Commission.
“The jobs offered back were not always identical to those the employees had lost,” Sullivan remarked during the Wednesday meeting at the bank’s annual general meeting held at the Gabba in Brisbane.

“I wanted to ask what specific strategies, if any, are currently in place to protect existing staff from being replaced by artificial intelligence, and also from jobs being moved overseas,” she asked.

The 63-year-old said she was made redundant after 25 years with the bank, which is Australia’s most valuable public company, and had spent the past few years working on teaching its “Bumblebee” chatbot how to respond to customers.
She expected to be redeployed once her work developing scripts and testing responses was finished, but she was instead told her services were no longer required.
“We made a mistake,” Commonwealth Bank chairman Paul O’Malley said, acknowledging how difficult the process had been for Sullivan.
“We didn’t adequately consider all the relevant business considerations. And I think that’s been communicated.”
Chief executive Matt Comyn added the bank sometimes had to make difficult decisions that impacted employees.

“We believe that engaging with employees and working to develop and retain their skills is very important, and it is a definite focus for us as we move forward,” Comyn responded.

Rows of people are seated, with a panel of people up on stage. A large screen shows a man in a black suit, white shirt and blue tie speaking.

Matt Comyn, the Commonwealth Bank’s CEO and managing director, acknowledged that the bank faces difficult decisions that sometimes affect its workers. Source: AAP / Darren England

The bank posted a record profit of $10.1 billion in the year to 30 June, a figure Comyn previously said could have been higher if it had better leveraged the possibilities from AI.

O’Malley also defended the bank’s use of offshore workers in India in response to another question, saying the country was home to an incredible pool of talent and the company needed to adapt to the times.
“There’s been a dramatic shift in how customers engage with us and how we have to engage with customers,” he said.

“Fifteen years ago … we didn’t do everything on our phones.”

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.
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