{"id":733752,"date":"2026-06-13T09:51:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T09:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/733752\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T09:51:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T09:51:27","slug":"westpac-is-embedding-ai-across-its-core-flows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/733752\/","title":{"rendered":"Westpac is embedding AI across its core “flows”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Westpac is embedding AI into core “flows” or parts of its operations, with the technology set to be part of its mobile and online banking offerings by the first quarter of FY27.<\/p>\n

\"Westpac<\/p>\n


\n Luis Uguina. \n <\/p>\n

The bank has even bigger ambitions when it comes to artificial intelligence, wanting to build \u201cpersonalised agents\u201d that can help customers achieve their financial goals.<\/p>\n

A consumer division presentation on Thursday saw one of the bank\u2019s key recent hires – ex-Macquarie and now Westpac consumer\u2019s general manager of data, digital and AI Luis Uguina<\/a> – take the stage and outline his first six months at the institution.<\/p>\n

Westpac is in the process of transforming its backend (Unite), frontend (digital-first) and how it executes change \u2018Catalyst\u2019.<\/p>\n

Most of the focus Thursday was on the digital-first service model, where digital \u201cwill become our primary experience, not just a channel,\u201d consumer division CEO Carolyn McCann said.<\/p>\n

McCann said that \u201c70 percent of the things that you can do in a branch, you can do on the [Westpac] app\u201d.<\/p>\n

Westpac thinks it can offer both better personalised customer service digitally, and at a much lower cost.<\/p>\n

Broadly, the digital cost-to-serve is \u201c65 percent lower,\u201d Uguina said.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, every three in four simple sales are executed digitally, and these numbers are growing eight percent month on month,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On what Westpac called \u201csimple sale\u201d-type interactions, the cost to complete it in a branch is $500, versus \u201c$200 in the call centre and close to zero on the app,\u201d McCann said.<\/p>\n

Data and AI has a central role to play in powering this digital-first service model.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Uguina said that role has shifted substantially in the space of a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne year ago, before I joined Westpac, the focus was purely on digitalisation: mobile apps, online journeys and straight-through processing,\u201d Uguina said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be digital-first 1781344284, we now use digital, data and AI together to fundamentally improve how the bank works, and this is working for both the customers and the economics of our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bank wants to do three things \u201cmaterially differently\u201d using AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, make banking simpler and more intuitive for customers, [with] fewer steps, more relevance and more personalised interactions. This supports our strategy on deepening relationships, improved retention and increased customer lifetime value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond, improve how we run the bank and lift productivity. That means better decisioning, more automation in our operations teams, and using AI in our servicing capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd third, doing this in a way that is safe, well governed [that is] consistent with expectations [as a] regulated institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supporting these efforts is a data infrastructure layer, built on Snowflake and Azure, that broke cover back in November last year.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Intelligence Layer is a platform that will capture and process real time signals, events, and behavioural patterns from our customers,\u201d Uguina said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will use this information to generate insights, predictions and leads to support more personalised customer experience, and [to] provide our bankers with a single view of the customer in the assisted channels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will also improve fraud detection, offer dynamic pricing, and make more connected decisions. Obviously this will help deliver more revenue per customer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uguina said that the composite data picture gathered through the Intelligence Layer could, for example, \u201cindicate that a customer is considering shifting into a different bank\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c[From there], we will engage with them through the appropriate channel at the appropriate time with an appropriate savings offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI will enable an even deeper, and more proactive, level of personalisation. The only debate is when it will be handling some of the more critical customer-facing workflows.<\/p>\n

At present, Westpac is shifting AI \u201cbeyond isolated use cases\u201d to embedding it \u201cinto the core flows of the bank,\u201d Uguina said.<\/p>\n

\u201cServicing, lending, collections, contact centre, fraud, and employee workflows are the areas where we are reimagining the uses of AI,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cThat\u2019s where the real value sits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under questioning, Uguina clarified that in \u201cearly probably Q1 FY27 we will start seeing AI capabilities embedded in the mobile app and online banking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The future of AI-enabled banking<\/p>\n

Looking farther ahead, Uguina predicted that AI would be helping customers manage their finances and make decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also thinking about how we are going to be using AI to help customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a vision that we will be able to deliver personalised agents that will basically take the customer [through] the proper financial analysis and will be able to take care of the finance of the customer in many different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uguina suggested a model where \u201cyou tell the [AI] agent, \u2018These are my long term goals, these are my expectations, this is how I want to manage the money etc,\u201d and then the agent would go to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that we can do really well generating capabilities that will keep our customers safe and fully-focused on making their financial life easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCann backed the view that AI would be a \u201cgamechanger\u201d in the consumer segment, and expressed an opinion that customer use of the tools would grow over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment I\u2019d say it\u2019s for information purposes. I think we\u2019re some way away from customers trusting AI to move money around accounts,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt though that that may come at some point in the future, and that may also disrupt the broking market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Westpac is embedding AI into core “flows” or parts of its operations, with the technology set to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-733752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}