Australia’s CommBank partners business school to research artificial intelligence
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CommBank wants to better understand how its customers perceive, use and trust artificial intelligence, as the technology is set to reach every corner of the finance sector
Commonwealth Bank is attempting to increase its understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) in the banking sector through a research partnership with a business school.
The Australian bank, which has 17 million customers, is working with Melbourne Business School to help it understand how Australian’s perceive, use and trust AI.
The organisations have created what they call the AI Attitude Barometer to “explore Australians’ understanding, adoption and sentiment towards AI within financial services”, according to the bank.
Will Mailer, chief behavioural scientist at CommBank, said the research will provide insights as AI adoption grows over time. “AI is evolving rapidly, and it’s critical that we understand how Australians feel about its use in banking,” he said.
The University of Melbourne, which the business school is part of, published a study last year of global attitudes to AI, which found 80% of Australians will trust AI when their ethical and responsible practices are in place.
Nicole Gillespie, a professor at the university, said: “Our study of over 48,000 people across 47 countries revealed that Australians are optimistic about AI’s benefits, while also mindful of the risks. This is why four in five Australians say they would trust the use of AI more when practices are in place to ensure its responsible and ethical use.”
Mailer said early insights show the proportion of participants that felt AI introduced more risk than benefits was lower in banking than in media, arts and entertainment, healthcare and education. “The AI Attitudes Barometer will help us stay closely connected to our customers’ lived experiences and support them as adoption grows,” he added.
In the UK, regulators are grappling with the challenges of introducing AI in the banking sector. There are concerns, among MPs, that the regulators are exposing consumers “to potential serious harm” through not doing enough to manage the risks the technology brings to the finance sector.
This was the message in a recent Treasury Select Committee report, which said there are risks come because of the positions adopted by the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which the MPs described as a “wait-and-see approach”.
Soon after the Parliamentary report was published, the FCA announced a review of the potential long-term impacts of advanced AI in the finance sector with the prospect of “non-human intelligence surpassing human reasoning”. The Mills Review, as it is known, will focus on what impact AI could have on consumers, finance firms and regulators in the future.
Research projects like the one being carried out by CommBank will help banks to use AI appropriately and indirectly help regulators understand it better. Alexandra Mousavizadeh, co-founder and CEO at Evident, which carries out AI benchmarking in the banking sector, believes banks are helping regulators through self-regulation.
“As a bank, you cannot have AI that provides vague or weird solutions because it’s your customer base, so make any mistake and you have a really big problem from a reputational damage perspective,” said Mousavizadeh.
Banks are increasing their adoption of AI as returns on investment grow. According to recent Lloyds Banking Group research, 59% of surveyed firms reported AI-driven productivity gains in the past 12 months, compared with 32% in the 2024 survey.
In its Financial institutions sentiment survey, it found that 21% of respondents believe AI is directly driving business growth, compared with 8% in the survey a year ago.
Meanwhile, a third (33%) of respondents said AI is enhancing customer experiences, up from 14%. The same number said they have deeper customer insights through AI, compared with 18% last year.
