Westpac spends US$12,000 in AI tokens on intranet migration

Westpac's Dan Jermyn.

Westpac has accomplished a technology project that would ordinarily have cost “low seven figures” with AI and for a fraction of that outlay.

Chief AI officer Dan Jermyn told the bank’s data, digital and AI update this week that the project is an early win from its AI engineering work with Amp.

The partnership with Amp was only revealed last month, but is aimed at “using AI to help transform how the bank builds and delivers technology, supporting major programs and delivering improved digital experiences in weeks rather than months.”

Given that the partnership is predicated on faster delivery, it makes sense to have a ready example that the predicted return-on-investment (ROI) is being realised.

“Our partnership with Amp is unlocking a huge amount of value in engineering,” Jermyn said.

“In one of our examples we’re migrating our internal intranet to a new system. 

“This is a project that typically would cost low seven figures to achieve and take about a year. 

“We were able to complete that with a cost of $12,000 USD ($16,880) in [AI] tokens. Obviously, the ROI there is very clear.”

The exact value-adding role of AI in projects may not always be this clear cut, however - and chief data, digital and AI officer Andrew McMullan said that is intentional.

“I’ve worked in this game for almost three decades, and I’m always careful about trying to isolate the exact impact that AI has on a particular initiative,” McMullan said.

McMullan indicated, for example, that the bank could use intelligence, in the form of behavioural signals from customers, to feed into AI work or as a prompt for frontline teams to make contact with a customer directly.

The emphasis is on the utility of the signal or the data, noting that value from the data could be derived in multiple ways, and it didn’t necessarily make sense to isolate what only AI brought to the table in that context.

Still, it is hard to escape a cost conversation around AI use, and Jermyn acknowledged that token usage remains under close observation.

Westpac has previously said it has AI token trackers on desktops to show users what they are spending.

“One of the ways we think about this is how do you manage increasing costs and increasing use of these tools while you’re still returning great value,” Jermyn said.

“We’re doing this, [for example], by being very thoughtful about model interoperability and with close analysis and monitoring of the way we’re using technology, particularly tokens. 

“Obviously with the success we’ve seen [using AI], we’re seeing an increase in the number of tokens being used, but actually the unit economics, the cost per token that we’re seeing through Amp … is continually being squeezed as well, so they’re actually progressing broadly at the same rate [as value creation].”