ASB’s software engineers and developers, plus the bank’s call centre workers, are on the frontline as the bank seeks “scale benefit” through the use of artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n
CEO Vittoria Shortt told interest.co.nz ASB was looking to “leverage as much as we possibly can” from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) group, which is being “very proactive and understanding both the opportunities and the risks with AI.”<\/p>\n
On February 5 CBA released a glossy 20-page paper,\u00a0CBA’s approach to adopting AI.<\/a><\/p>\n Asked for a couple of examples of how ASB’s using AI, Shortt said ASB’s looking for “scale benefit.” An example of this is\u00a0software engineers and developers using generative AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We’ve got about a thousand of those writing code. They’re never going to write code from scratch again. They are using these new AI tools and they’re working extremely well,” Shortt said.<\/p>\n “What we’ve seen as a result of that is our cycle time, or our development cycle time, is halved.\u00a0And that’s one of the reasons why it’s halved.”<\/p>\n “It’s also helping us when we shift from older systems onto more modern systems. We’re using AI tools and capability to help us translate code.”<\/p>\n Separately, the bank’s new contact centre platform has AI capability.<\/p>\n “And what that’s doing is helping pop information to our people on the phones…making the calls more efficient. So we have brought our contact centre pick-up times down from four minutes to two minutes, as an example,” Shortt said.<\/p>\n AI can also be used for customer due diligence, including in the anti-money laundering and know your customer areas. And ASB is\u00a0piloting “putting masters and doctorate students into our customers’ businesses to help apply AI.”<\/p>\n “We are moving to make sure that everybody at ASB has access to an [AI] tool. We want everybody to start learning where it works, where it doesn’t work, and how it can help all of our jobs,” said Shortt.<\/p>\n Shortt was speaking to interest.co.nz after ASB posted interim financial results <\/a>on Wednesday.<\/p>\n