The Commonwealth Bank is looking to deepen 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 understand how Australians perceive, use and trust AI.
The bank said the organizations created something called the AI Attitude Barometer to “survey Australians’ understanding, adoption and sentiment towards AI in financial services”.
Will Mailer, chief behavioral scientist at CommBank, said the study will provide insights as AI adoption increases over time. “AI is evolving rapidly and it is important to understand how Australians feel about the use of AI in banking,” he said.
Last year, the University of Melbourne, of which the business school is affiliated, published a survey on global attitudes towards AI, which found 80% of Australians would trust AI if ethical and responsible practices were in place.
“Our survey of more than 48,000 people from 47 countries reveals that while Australians are optimistic about the benefits of AI, they are also mindful of the risks. This is why four in five Australians say they would be more trusting of the use of AI if practices were in place to ensure its responsible and ethical use,” said Professor Nicole Gillespie from the university.
Mailer said early insights showed that the proportion of participants who felt AI posed more risks than benefits was lower in banking than in media, arts and entertainment, healthcare and education. “AI Attitudes Barometer helps us stay connected to our customers’ real-world experiences and support them as their adoption progresses,” he added.
In the UK, regulators are grappling with the challenge of introducing AI into the banking sector. There are concerns among lawmakers that regulators are not adequately managing the risks the technology poses to the financial sector, exposing consumers to “potentially significant harm”.
This was the message of the recent Treasury Select Committee report, which said risks were posed by the positions taken by the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which MPs described as a “wait-and-see approach”.
Shortly after the parliamentary report was published, the FCA announced a review of the potential long-term impact of advanced AI in the financial sector, with the prospect that “non-human intelligence will exceed human reasoning”. The Mills Review, as it is known, focuses on how AI is likely to impact consumers, financial companies and regulators in the future.
Research projects like the one CommBank is conducting can help banks use AI appropriately, and indirectly help regulators better understand AI. Alexandra Mousavizadeh, co-founder and CEO of Evident, which conducts AI benchmarking in the banking industry, believes banks are supporting regulators through self-regulation.
“As a bank, we cannot deploy AI that provides vague and strange solutions because it is our customer base, so if we make even the slightest mistake, it becomes a huge problem from a reputational damage perspective,” Mousavizadeh said.
Banks are increasing their adoption of AI as investment returns improve. According to a recent survey from Lloyds Banking Group, 59% of companies surveyed reported productivity gains from AI in the past 12 months (compared to 32% in the 2024 survey).
among them Financial institution psychological surveyfound that 21% of respondents believe AI is directly driving business growth (compared to 8% in the survey a year ago).
Meanwhile, a third (33%) of respondents said AI is improving the customer experience, up from 14%. The same number say they are gaining deeper customer insights through AI, up from 18% last year.
