Australia's big four banks are ramping up their use of artificial intelligence to answer customer calls and help assess loan applications. How long before a robot rather than a human writes your home loan? Commonwealth Bank was one of the first big four banks to come out publicly and say it is trialling a ChatGPT-style AI chat bot in its call centres, creating fears it could replace thousands of local call centre staff. At ANZ, AI acts as an over-the-shoulder assistant for about 1200 call centre workers. The bank also uses artificial intelligence to check documents that are needed to get a home loan, like payslips, and complex loan contracts. This can help cut some tasks from several hours to 'mere seconds'. NAB employs AI to analyse the 'emotional sentiment' of customer phone calls and 'give the right level of empathy'. But there are concerns about the way AI is being used. The Finance Sector Union is worried thousands of call centre jobs could be replaced. It wants more transparency from the banks about the impact on workers, as well as consumers. There are fears that AI could stray into giving consumers financial advice and make mistakes that leave Australians in trouble. And what if AI bots were biased or discriminated against people from certain socio-economic backgrounds and/or genders? The banks are weighing up the risks, but technology is moving faster the regulation. The European Union has introduced laws to regulate AI - a model Australia's Human Rights Commissioner says Australia could consider. #ABCBusiness
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This is an example where using AI we can take a handwritten receipt.
At ANZ's new AI centre, workers are eager to learn.
The lesson today is how to use artificial intelligence
to process loan applications more quickly and easily.
Whenever you apply for a loan, we have to pick up all sorts of information
such as pay sloops, proof of employment, complex loan contracts.
AI can now allow us to actually take information from documents
and extract a lot of that meaning and cutting the amount of time it takes
from hours and hours down to sometimes mere seconds.
CBA was one of the first big four banks to come out publicly
and say it's trialling a chat GTP-style AI chatbot in its call centres,
creating fears it could replace thousands of local call centre staff.
At ANZ, AI acts as an over-the-shoulder assistant for about 1,200 call centre workers.
People have used this technology to very quickly summarise everything
about what the bank has on file for the customer
to help them answer the customer's questions more quickly and more reliably.
National Australia Bank is also using AI to interpret customer inquiries.
If you're taking a call and a customer is agitated or they're upset
or they're relatively neutral, our vision is that we'll be able to service that up to our bankers
so they kind of understand what their call is about that they're about to take
and also give the right level of empathy to customers.
There's not enough transparency in the information that's coming through.
But there are concerns about the way AI is being used.
The Union for Finance Sector Workers wants more transparency from the banks,
including about how people's jobs will change,
and it's worried using AI for sentiment analysis can be misleading.
One of our members was having a phone call with one of their customers
and they made a very mundane comment about the weather,
how unfortunately it's raining at the moment.
The AI said this was a negative customer interaction because they used the word unfortunately.
Although it is called artificial intelligence, it still does need that human oversight.
The boss of this tech start-up is using an AI tool he created
to help Superfunds assess a customer's financial position.
He wants to pitch it to the big four banks but concedes it would replace some roles.
The idea of thinking that this technology will not have an impact on the job market,
I think it's ludicrous. Of course there is going to be an impact.
AI consultant Joe Sweeney says there's also a risk that it strays into financial advice.
It's an idiot plagiarist at best.
Now the danger, particularly for financial institutions or any institution that is
governed by certain codes of behaviour, is that those AIs will make mistakes.
If those mistakes are in breach of regulation, then those organisations have a real problem.
The rapid pace at which AI is advancing means the technology is moving faster than the regulation.
The European Union has already introduced some laws to regulate artificial intelligence,
a model Australia could consider.
Australia's Human Rights Commissioner is working with our big banks to remove bias from any AI processes.
We'd be particularly concerned with respect to home loans, for example,
that you could have disadvantage in terms of people from lower socioeconomic areas.
There could be racial discrimination, disability discrimination, gender discrimination.
Naturally we're going to be pretty conservative on some of these things.
ANZ's Tim Hogarth says the risks are being carefully weighed up.
I don't think that's likely to happen in the next five to ten years
of having a home loan completely decided by a machine.
I think it's very likely though that the way we're going to buy homes will be fundamentally different.
A difference customers will soon start to see when they interact with Australia's biggest lenders.
