The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has expanded its investment in and partnership with artificial intelligence (AI) safety and research company Anthropic to help with scam and fraud prevention and improve customer service.
Australia’s biggest company and bank did not detail the level or cost of the investment in the company founded by former OpenAI employees and which, according to a media release, was valued by its last funding round at US$61.5 billion (A$97.6 billion).
“The expanded partnership will position CBA to leverage Anthropic’s AI capabilities and expertise in safety and AI practices to help accelerate adoption of AI to support our people and transform customer experiences,” CBA said in a media release.
Group Chief Information Officer Gavin Munroe said the enhanced partnership and investment would help CBA to accelerate its AI capability.
He said CBA engineers would work with Anthropic’s experts to acceleration the creation of products to serve customers and communities and protect them from scams and fraud.
“Our partnership will also provide our technologists with access to Anthropic’s thought leaders, accelerating professional development for our people and helping us in our ambition to stay at the forefront of safe and responsible AI,” Munroe said.
Anthropic Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao said combining Anthropic's advanced AI capabilities with CBA's deep financial expertise could create more personalised customer experiences and maintain the highest safety and security standards.
“Our teams look forward to working closely with CBA's engineers and data scientists to explore innovative applications of our technology, particularly in critical areas like fraud prevention and customer service enhancement," Rao said.
CBA has provided few public details of its work with Anthropic although CEO Matt Comyn has talked of using the company to enhance its AI capability.
The last CBA annual report does not mention Anthropic.
At the time of writing CBA shares were trading at A$142.74, down $1.26 (0.87%) on the day, and valuing the bank at $239.57 billion.
