CBA opens a second US 'tech hub'

CBA has opened its second ‘technology hub’ stateside, with a new space in downtown San Francisco adding to its existing presence in Seattle. 

The bank said the new hub doubles down on its desire to be geographically close to “concentrated … ecosystems” of AI development.

It said that more than 70 percent of its engineering teams use AI tools but it wants to “accelerate” that - presumably expanding the breadth of tools and driving adoption rates even higher.

“Across the two locations, CommBank is working closely with OpenAI, AWS, Anthropic and Microsoft,” the bank’s CEO Matt Comyn said.

“This is part of our commitment to working at the frontier of technology, alongside leading global partners.”

So far, CBA “team members” have spent a fortnight at the San Francisco hub, “participating in collaborative learning opportunities with leading AI labs.”
This is in addition to about 100 CBA technologists that have passed through the bank’s other hub in Seattle, and brought back skills and expertise to Australia.

AI powered engineering product owner Henry Chan, who was in the first cohort of staff to visit San Francisco, said that “very quickly, from the moment you land in San Francisco you notice all the billboards are AI-related.”

“You realise this environment is, by default, AI-powered. Your brain automatically switches,” he said.

“One of the things that we specifically came to San Francisco to learn was how other leading companies are able to move so quickly, how they’ve changed or altered or augmented their product delivery life cycles over the last couple of years.”