As Australian banks grow increasingly anxious to plant a flag on artificial intelligence, is the sector approaching a tipping point?
Last week triggered a foot race among the majors eager to set the pace, or at least look busy. Westpac started the stampede by rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot to almost 50,000 staff. Commonwealth Bank followed by publishing an AI guidebook that notably acknowledges the inherent risks.
ANZ then deployed Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 platform to help bankers manage business clients, three weeks after Macquarie rolled out its AI-powered agent ‘Q’ to respond directly to customer questions.
With NAB expected to make announcements in the coming weeks, there’s a temptation to see the rush as a public relations battle between the big five. Certainly, recent history suggests there have been enough corporate junkets to Silicon Valley and enough lip service across corporate Australia to warrant some scepticism.
