Commonwealth Bank of Australia Forced to Rehire Workers After AI Chatbot Fails to Reduce Call Volumes

Bank forced to rehire workers after lying about chatbot productivity, union says

As banks around the world prepare to replace many thousands of workers with AI, Australia's biggest bank is scrambling to rehire 45 workers after allegedly lying about chatbots besting staff by handling higher call volumes. In a statement Thursday flagged by Bloomberg, Australia's main financial services union, the Finance Sector Union (FSU), claimed a "massive win" for 45 union members whom the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) had replaced with an AI-powered "voice bot." The FSU noted that some of these workers had been with CBA for decades. Those workers in particular were shocked when CBA announced last month that their jobs had become redundant. At that time, CBA claimed that launching the chatbot supposedly "led to a reduction in call volumes" by 2,000 a week, FSU said. But "this was an outright lie," fired workers told FSU. Instead, call volumes had been increasing at the time they were dismissed, with CBA supposedly "scrambling" -- offering staff overtime and redirecting management to join workers answering phones to keep up. To uncover the truth, FSU escalated the dispute to a fair work tribunal, where the union accused CBA of failing to explain how workers' roles were ruled redundant. The union also alleged that CBA was hiring for similar roles in India, Bloomberg noted, which made it appear that CBA had perhaps used the chatbot to cover up a shady pivot to outsource jobs. While the dispute was being weighed, CBA admitted that "they didn't properly consider that an increase in calls" happening while staff was being fired "would continue over a number of months," FSU said. "This error meant the roles were not redundant," CBA confirmed at the tribunal.

Commonwealth Bank Reverses Job Cuts Decision Over AI Chatbots

Commonwealth Bank of Australia reversed a decision to cut 45 customer service roles due to new artificial intelligence technology after pressure from the country's main financial services union. The union took CBA to the workplace relations tribunal earlier this month as the company wasn't being transparent about call volumes, according to a statement Thursday from the Finance Sector Union. The nation's largest lender had said that the voice bot reduced call volumes by 2,000 a week, when union members said volumes were in fact rising and CBA had to offer staff overtime and direct team leaders to answer calls, the union said.

Bank reverses decision to replace 45 staff with chatbot

Also fired another AI - GitHub Copilot - after it produced 'mixed results in utilisation and efficacy' Australia's Commonwealth Bank has decided not to fire 45 workers it planned to replace with an AI chatbot. The Bank told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about the sackings in late July, and said the introduction of AI had reduced call volumes by allowing automation of simple queries. The bank intended for the chatbot to leave staff able to handle tougher queries, even once it cut employee numbers. The Bank was wrong, and on Thursday it apologized to the staff it let go . Australia's Finance Sector Union welcomed what it called a "backflip" and claimed call volumes rose at the Bank, leading to increased overtime for the remaining staff and management being drafted to help answer phones. It's unclear if the AI failed to perform as hoped, or if the bank botched something else. While the Union is celebrating, many more fights with the Commonwealth Bank probably lie ahead as it recently announced a partnership with OpenAI "to bring advanced AI to customers and employees" and "deliver more personalised services for CommBank customers." The Bank has also adopted AI tools to help its software developers, yesterday detailing how it adopted GitHub Copilot, "with mixed results in utilisation and efficacy." Distinguished engineer Brent McKendrick said the version of Copilot used at the bank "was simply an AI powered auto-complete engine". It has since created "Run-time agents" that McKendrick said "can provide solutions to problems that we could not readily solve before, such as dynamic customer service bots, real-time transcription and summarisation, intelligent document analysis, etc." So clearly the Bank plans to revisit use of AI on its customer service frontlines. Commonwealth Bank employs over 55,000 people, and officials have pointed out that while the chatbot saw it shed 45 staff, it hired thousands last year. ®

Bank Fires Workers in Favor of AI Chatbot, Rehires Them After Chatbot Is Terrible at the Job

Yet another tale of AI's less-than-stellar employee track record has emerged. Companies all over the world are currently racing to shrink their workforces and replace them with AI. Often, it seems, this isn't working out for the firms involved. Case in point: A bank in Australia recently did so, but then had to ask its workers to come back after it turned out that the chatbot that it had launched to replace them couldn't cut the mustard. Last month, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced that it would be laying off 45 customer service workers as it rolled out a new AI-powered â€~voice bot’ that could supposedly do their job, Bloomberg reports. The bank claimed that the chatbot reduced the bank's call volume significantly. However, the workers' union got involved and says it has determined that wasn't the outcome. Australia's Finance Sector Union, which represents workers in the banking industry, called BS on the bank's claims and engaged CBA in a workplace relations tribunal. Now, it appears that the bank has admitted it made a grievous mistake, telling Bloomberg that its initial assessment that the customer service reps were no longer needed “did not adequately consider all relevant business considerations and this error meant the roles were not redundant.†"We have apologized to the employees concerned and acknowledge we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required," a bank spokesperson told the news outlet. The same spokesperson said that the fired workers were being offered several options, including continuing in their old positions. Gizmodo reached out to CBA for more information. FSU put out a statement on Thursday, sharing details about the situation. "CBA last month announced the jobs would be made redundant due to the introduction of a new AI-powered â€~voice bot’, which they claimed had led to a reduction in call volumes. Members told us this was an outright lie and did not reflect the reality of what was happening in Direct Banking," FSU writes. "Call volumes were in fact increasing and CBA was scrambling to manage the situation by offering staff overtime and directing Team Leaders to answer calls." "Getting CBA to rescind these job cuts is a massive win â€" but the damage has already been done for our 45 colleagues who have had to endure the stress and worry of facing redundancy, some of whom have been with the bank for decades and were suddenly confronted with the prospect of being unable to pay their bills," the union added. While the particulars of this whole episode aren't readily available, it certainly seems like yet another example of a company putting the cart before the horse with AI. Ultimately, AI is still an experimental technology, and its results are hit or miss. A much-publicized MIT study recently claimed that 95 percent of AI pilot programs at companies have, so far, been failures. With numbers like that, companies would be wise to keep their headcount high for the time being.

Now that's an embarassing U-turn - bank forced to rehire human workers after their AI replacement fails to perform

Australia's Commonwealth Bank has provided a useful example of how not to introduce AI tools after being forced into an embarassing clim-down. The bank had recently announced 45 customer service workers would be cut and replaced with an AI-powered 'voice bot' in an effort to reduce call volumes and automate less complex replies - leaving a small number of employees to handle the remaining more complex enquiries. As it turns out, these bots were not capable of handling the tasks that the workers could - and now, those cut employees will now be rehired. The bank claimed the 'voice-bot' led to a reduction in calls, but Australia's Finance Sector Union disputes this claim, noting, "Members told us this was an outright lie and did not reflect the reality of what was happening in Direct Banking. Call volumes were in fact increasing and CBA was scrambling to manage the situation by offering staff overtime and directing Team Leaders to answer calls." The bank issued an apology to the staff who were affected by the proposed job cuts and reversed the decision. A spokesperson from the bank told TechRadar Pro that it's initial assessment 'did not adequately consider all relevant business considerations and this error meant the roles were not redundant.' "We have apologised to the employees concerned and acknowledge we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required. We are currently supporting affected employees and have provided them with choice regarding continuing in their current roles, pursuing redeployment within CBA or to proceed with leaving the organisation." That being said, CommBank is not denouncing the tech entirely, having recently announced a partnership with OpenAI to develop scam and fraud detection solutions, as well as 'deliver more personalized services' for its customers. For months, concerns about job losses at the hands of AI were dismissed, with companies assuring that only the most basic and mundane admin tasks would be handled by bots, leaving workers to focus on the more creative aspects of their roles. Those in administrative positions who handle almost exclusively mundane tasks have warned that these models, although sometimes useful, cannot replace human experience and understanding. It's undeniable that AI is replacing workers, with hundreds of jobs at firms like IBM and Crowdstrike disappearing as humans have been made more dispensable thanks to the tech. But, not all of these cost-cutting decisions are working out. In the UK, over half of all businesses who replaced workers with AI already regret their decision, and are not less likely to believe that AI will replace human workers.

This Bank Fired Workers and Replaced Them With AI. It Now Says That Was a Huge Mistake

Last month, the story at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) was a familiar one. Some 45 customer service workers were put out of their jobs as the financial institution pivoted to an artificial intelligence solution. It wasn't long before the bank was touting the success of its AI voicebot, saying it had reduced call volumes by 2,000 per week. But what happened next was a rarity: The bank asked the workers it had laid off to come back, saying the AI actually wasn't able to do the job. The CBA has issued an apology to the affected employees along with the offer to come back, but said it would also honor promised payments to those who wished to leave. The boasts about the AI's performance, it turned out, were untrue, says the union representing the displaced workers. The union escalated the matter to Australia's Fair Work Commission, which is akin to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the U.S., an agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. "Members told us this [boast about reducing call volumes] was an outright lie and did not reflect the reality of what was happening in Direct Banking," the union said in a statement. "Call volumes were in fact increasing and CBA was scrambling to manage the situation by offering staff overtime and directing Team Leaders to answer calls." CBA, in a statement to Bloomberg, said its decision that the customer service workers were no longer needed "did not adequately consider all relevant business considerations and this error meant the roles were not redundant." The CBA is far from the first company to lean hard into AI replacing workers, only to find that humans are still essential. Two years ago, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski announced he wanted his company to be the "favorite guinea pig" of OpenAI, instituting a hiring freeze and replacing as many workers as possible with AI systems. While the fintech company is still investing in AI, it has rethought its approach to human workers. In May, Klarna announced plans to go on a hiring spree, ensuring customers will always have the option to speak to a live representative. Meanwhile, earlier this year Duolingo announced an AI-first shift, saying it would stop using contractors to do work AI can handle and only increase headcount when teams have maximized all possible automation. That was met with a wave of negative feedback on social media. Duolingo said much of that feedback came from people who didn't understand what AI-first means. It was still doing damage control earlier this month, with the CEO vowing the technology would not replace human workers. More recently, MIT issued a report claiming that 95 percent of AI pilot programs at companies have been failures so far, with no measurable impact on profits and losses. Despite all this, AI is still expected to have a dramatic effect on the workforce. Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, warned in July that the technology could replace recruiters and assistants in as little as six months. And in May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sounded an alarm, saying AI could wipe out roughly 50 percent of all entry-level white collar jobs within five years, which he said could cause unemployment to spike to between 10 percent and 20 percent. That warning, he said, was aimed at both lawmakers and his peers in the AI world. "Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen," Amodei said. "It sounds crazy, and people just don't believe it. ... We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming."

CommBank reverses plan to replace call centre staff with AI

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. In July, the Australian bank confirmed that it was axing 45 positions, stating: "Our investment in technology, including AI, is making it easier and faster for customers to get help, especially in our call centres." However, according to the Finance Sector Union, the claim that the new bot led to a reduction in call volumes "was an outright lie". "Call volumes were in fact increasing and CBA was scrambling to manage the situation by offering staff overtime and directing Team Leaders to answer calls," says the union. CommBank has now conceded that the job cuts were an "error" and has apologised to the affected employees. The bank says it "did not adequately consider all relevant business considerations" when announcing the redundancies and acknowledges "we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required," according to ABC. The 45 staffers have been given the choice of carrying on in their jobs, seeking a redeployment or leaving CommBank. The Finance Sector Union says that "getting CBA to rescind these job cuts is a massive win - but the damage has already been done for our 45 colleagues". The incident has not dampened CommBank's enthusiasm for AI - last week it unveiled a relationship with OpenAI, striking a multi-year deal to provide employees with access to ChatGPT Enterprise.

CBA backflips on AI call centre cuts amid union backlash

Commonwealth Bank has reversed its decision to replace customer service staff with artificial intelligence, after a surge in call volumes forced management to rethink the controversial move. The bank had originally planned to cut 45 roles and hand their duties to a new AI-powered "voice bot", claiming the technology would reduce call volumes by 2,000 a week. Instead, demand rose and managers were left scrambling, offering overtime to staff and redeploying team leaders to answer phones. By Wednesday evening, the bank had walked back its proposal, scrapping the cuts. The Financial Sector Union (FSU) welcomed the turnaround but said the broader threat posed by AI-driven cost-cutting still loomed large. "CBA has been caught out trying to dress up job cuts as innovation," FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said. "Using AI as a cover for slashing secure jobs is a cynical cost-cutting exercise, and workers know it." The union said this was not an isolated incident, warning similar moves were being rolled out across the financial services sector under the banner of "efficiency". "Our members want to be part of the conversation about how new technology is used in banking," Ms Angrisano added. "They want secure jobs today and the training needed for the jobs of the future, not to be discarded under the guise of efficiency." When the AI rollout was first announced last month, a Commonwealth Bank spokesman defended the broader shift in workforce strategy. "To meet the changing needs of our customers, like many organisations, we review the skills we need and how we're organised to deliver the best customer experiences and outcomes," the spokesman said. The bank pointed to its significant investment in operations and hiring, claiming to have added more than 9,000 staff in the 2025 financial year, alongside $2bn in operational spending. The controversy comes just days after CBA revealed a record-breaking full-year cash profit of $10.25 billion. The result, announced on August 13, saw cash profits rise by 4 per cent year-on-year, buoyed by lower bad debt levels and increased business lending. The bank's net interest margin, a key indicator of profitability, edged up to 2.08 per cent. CBA chief executive Matt Comyn said many Australians had experienced some financial relief in recent months. "Pleasingly, many households have seen a rise in disposable incomes due to the recent relief from reduced interest rates, lower inflation and tax cuts," he said. Despite that, pressure remains on the sector to maintain profits while managing technological change and public scrutiny over job security.