NAB widens generative AI pursuit

NAB is establishing foundations for a “significant transformation” using artificial intelligence, with the bank progressing multiple implementation plans.

Upon returning from briefings held in the US, chief executive Ross McEwan said his team are developing deployment strategies, to be delivered in one, three, and six-monthly increments.

McEwan revealed few details about NAB’s actual strategy but emphasised a need for “the right guardrails" before the bank could "then generate a longer term plan”.

“Then we can make (the tools) available to a much greater number of colleagues to make it easier for them to do their jobs and help our customers,” McEwan said.

He said NAB will take a “crawl first” approach to delivering its AI operations.

NAB chief data and analytics officer Christian Nelissen told iTnews the AI technology has been around for a while, “but we are in the midst of an explosion with things like ChatGPT rising in popularity and interest.”

“Like many companies, NAB has been utilising chatbot capabilities extensively internally and to help our customers, and we are constantly keeping an eye on emerging technologies and how they can help us deliver better experiences," Nelissen said.

Nelissen added that while it’s still “early days with generative AI” the bank has identified opportunities “and is investigating" them.

“We’ve recently created an internal framework for our colleagues to support the exploration of AI in a safe and structured way that focuses our innovation efforts," Nelissen said.

"In addition, our leadership team is investing time in exploring AI capability and identifying use cases.

“It’s also important that we take an approach that allows us to meet customer expectations, regulatory obligations and our own data ethics standards."

Rival Westpac has already seen a 46 percent productivity boost from its own AI-augmented coding experiments, while ANZ has tapped generative AI to explore a range of use cases that includes code testing.

CBA has also made headwinds in the AI space with its H2O.ai partnership, while Macquarie Bank recently opened new AI operations in a tie-up with Google Cloud.

Back at NAB, McEwan was quick to reassure its 36,000 employees that AI held the potential to lead to job creation rather than loss.

He pointed to his time as CEO at the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he introduced the first chatbot, leading to the formation of at least two new roles.

“There were two completely different jobs created out of that straight away – first off, the person who was training the bot had to make sure that the data which was going in was actually right, and second there was the person doing the audit," he said.

“They were two brand new jobs, so I think there will be lots of quite different jobs that come out of this, and some quite interesting skills required, in a similar way to how we’ve been training colleagues in data and how to use it.

“But as a bank, you do need to make sure that the customer data is protected and all the work you do is tested so that the machine actually reflects the reality.

“The machine itself is learning, but over time it gets smarter and smarter.”

McEwan agreed with industry players that the launch and rapid rise of generative AI was similar to the introduction of the internet.

“It’s one of those transformative technologies, and that’s why I took the entire executive team over to the US, because it’s that big," he said.

“So you either get in front and use it to move the organisation forward, or I suspect that there will be companies that do it to us. I want to be at the leading edge of it."

He added regulators will “understandably keep a very keen eye” on the emerging technology, ensuring it isn’t being used for malicious reasons.

“That’s why it’s vital to maintain a big ringfence around our organisation’s customer data,” he said.

“We should use it for the betterment of our customers, and that’s going to be the framework for the policies that we put in place."

McEwan also added AI makes its bankers “as valuable, if not more so, in the future”.

“People who interact with customers and can take all the information and data and articulate it simply to a customer become incredibly important.”