Why ANZ staff are embracing generative AI

ANZ Banking Group staff are using emerging technology, generative AI to help shift the work-life balance as the bank gears up for wider organisational adoption through its newly created ‘AI Immersion Centre’.  

The bank believes it has situated itself at the forefront of the AI movement by “embracing” the technology and will send 3000 workers through its new centre.

The major bank announced on Tuesday it partnered with Microsoft to kick off the AI Immersion Centre at its Melbourne headquarters.

ANZ said this will help staff “understand what’s possible and how to use generative AI safely, through hands-on learning experiences” with 3000 Copilot for Microsoft 365 licences acquired to back its plans.

In a Microsoft post, ANZ’s Carina Parisella, tribe lead for head of group technology workforce said, “One of my favourite ways to use Copilot is by prompting it with simple questions like, ‘How might I develop this concept further?’

“It helps me stretch my thinking and question my approach,” Parisella said.

“The AI Immersion Centre is all about inspiring and educating our leaders on AI,” added Parisella.

“We want them to understand what’s possible so they can rethink their business models and embrace AI safely and securely.”

Fotini Papas, initiative lead at ANZ, also said the emerging technology shifted the work-life balance.

“There were often days when I might have had to work back late because I didn’t get time to type up meeting notes and actions and send them out.”  

“Now, it’s a five-minute job, which means I am finishing on time and enjoying more personal time,” Papas added.

Meanwhile, ANZ’s group executive for technology, Gerard Florian said in a Bluenotes post, the AI facility “is designed to accelerate AI adoption by ANZ leaders so they can support widespread adoption of the tools and innovation across the organisation.

“We plan to create similar facilities in other ANZ locations soon too.”

He also said ANZ are “embracing this new technology thoughtfully, not resisting it." 

“We are well progressed on our AI journey and have a keen focus on applying this technology to help people and communities thrive,” Florian said.

He said generative AI’s “rapid development and adoption have raised questions over how it will transform our workforce and our workplaces.” 

“Billions of dollars have been invested into the broader category of artificial intelligence by the world’s biggest tech companies and McKinsey & Co. estimates more than $4 trillion in value will be unlocked using generative AI.”

He said while it is still “early days”, the technology offers a range of use cases where the technology “is already good enough and things will only improve from here.”

At ANZ, the likes of generative AI will be used to improve the customer experience and work more efficiently plus assist with regulatory standards compliance.

“Some of these solutions will be provided by our strategic partners and other solutions will be built by ANZ,” Florian said.

“An example of our partner-based solutions is work we are doing based upon Microsoft’s generative AI technologies – including Copilot for Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot – to boost productivity, innovation and customer service.

“ANZ has deployed Github Copilot to 3,000 of our software developers and engineers to assist with generating code.

“Early tests measured engineers completing some programming tasks 40 percent to 55 percent faster, leading to big increases in the amount of code produced and the quality of that code,” Florian said.

Suncorp and AI

With ANZ acquiring Suncorp Bank at the start of August this year, Florian said AI is used to help integrate Suncorp Bank and ANZ policies and procedures by cutting the time to compare and contrast thousands of documents, terms, conditions and contracts.

“We’re using AI to help spot signs of financial stress – even before the customers themselves are aware. We’ve developed a world-first AI transaction scoring capability for retail and small business customers.

“Using this method to scan customers transactions and financial data, we can identify customers at risk of distress about 40 days earlier and then proactively reach out to assist them,” Florian added.

He also said AI is being implemented to “make high-value transactions even more secure” and apply it to its ANZ Plus digital banking platform to match a customer’s face to their identity, making their banking safer.

“AI is also being used to summarise and query complex financial documents – extracting critical information fast.”