Opinion
Bring back the humans: CBA’s embarrassing AI jobs bungle a salutary lesson
Elizabeth Knight
Business columnistThe Commonwealth Bank’s enthusiasm to replace 45 call centre jobs with AI chatbots only to then reverse the decision could be best described as a “break things and then say sorry” management strategy.
It is clearly embarrassing for the bank that has talked up embracing AI to publicly bungle this particular aspect of implementation.
CBA chief executive Matt Comyn at the Canberra productivity reform roundtable.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
And it is certainly a salutary lesson for all businesses that the road to AI adoption is full of bumps and potholes.
There will be plenty of chief executives around the country taking notes about this CBA experiment.
But what is even more premature is celebratory champagne popping from the union movement.
The AI march by the CBA and others will continue – albeit in perhaps a more considered way.
This isn’t a case of buyer’s remorse.
Despite the hype around AI, the technology is still in its implementation infancy, particularly in Australia where many companies are talking a lot about its potential but are reluctant to provide detail about numbers of workers that will be replaced and in what areas.
Ultimately, there will be a tidal wave of redundancy and redeployment that the union movement will be unable to stop.
Business leaders are treading lightly to avoid frightening the (work) horses.
But companies understand the enormous productivity strides that AI will enable and won’t be deterred by inevitable execution snafus or push-back from unions.
Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn.Credit: AFR
CBA chief executive Matt Comyn should find comfort in the fact that there is growing evidence that early AI adopters around the world have experienced similar problems that required execution backflips.
A recent research report by UK software group Orgvue revealed that 39 per cent of business leaders it surveyed had made employees redundant as a result of deploying AI. But of those, more than half admitted they made wrong decisions about those redundancies and workers were re-hired.
The culprit appears to be a lack of understanding about how to apply AI in their businesses – an eagerness to play with a new toy without reading the manual.
Ultimately, there will be a tidal wave of redundancy and redeployment that the union movement will be unable to stop.
Two years ago, IBM famously boasted the adoption of AI allowed it to cut 8000 roles and save millions in costs, but later needed to replace staff to deal with the need for human expertise and creativity.
Swedish fintech firm Klarna was another that was forced to backpedal after initially replacing much of its customer service staff with AI chatbots, believing they performed the work of 700 employees. However, due to declining service quality and customer dissatisfaction, the company is now rehiring human agents.
When the CBA cut the call centre jobs in July, it said the move made it easier and faster for customers to get help.
On Thursday, CBA admitted that: “Its initial assessment that the 45 roles in our Customer Service Direct business were not required 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.”
CBA is clearly feeling a little bruised about this particular AI experiment, but it won’t be deterred.
The bank has long had technology innovation in its DNA – which is one of the reasons it is considered more successful than its competitors.
It invested heavily to become an early technology adopter, which has enabled the bank to introduce products and services ahead of its peers.
Sure, it has made mistakes but has generally adopted a fail-fast approach.
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