Commonwealth Bank of Australia cut 45 roles for a voice bot, then said they were not redundant

At a glance

Company

Commonwealth Bank of AustraliaBank

Size

Enterprise (1,000+ employees) The bank had about 2,400 contact-centre staff, according to Information Age.

Where and when

Australia. July – August 2025.

Who produced the figures

The company itselfThe bank’s words come from its spokesperson, as quoted by Information Age. The account of call volumes comes from the Finance Sector Union, the staff union, which opposed the cuts. The bank has published no figures on the voice bot’s performance.

What they did

In July 2025 Commonwealth Bank of Australia told staff that 45 roles in its Customer Service Direct business would go. The bank said a newly introduced AI voice bot would take over the work. The 45 roles were part of 90 role cuts announced at the same time.

At the time, a bank spokesperson said that “some roles and work can change” because of technology.

What the union said

The Finance Sector Union called it “the first example of jobs being lost as a direct result of AI”. It challenged the cuts.

According to the union, the work had not gone away:

• Calls were rising. Call numbers to customer service had gone up, not down.
• Managers were offering overtime to cover them.
• Team leaders were answering calls.

These are the union’s statements. The bank has not published its own call figures.

What happened next

On 21 August 2025 the bank reversed the decision. Its spokesperson said:

• The bank’s “initial assessment that the 45 roles in our Customer Service Direct business were not required did not adequately consider all relevant business considerations”.
• “This error meant the roles were not redundant.”
• “We have apologised to the employees concerned and acknowledge we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required.”
• The bank was “reviewing our internal processes”.

According to the union, the staff affected could choose to stay in their role, move to another job in the bank, or take the redundancy.

What the case shows

• Cutting jobs before the AI has taken the work is a forecast, not a saving. The bank declared the roles redundant on an assessment it later called an error.
• The people doing the work saw the gap first. Overtime and team leaders on the phones showed that the calls were still there.
• A fast, public reversal is possible. The bank named its error and apologised within about a month.

A similar reversal took a year at Klarna, whose chief executive later said cost had weighed too heavily in how the company ran customer service.

What this says about the practices

Practices that were missing

• Measure time saved per task against a baseline The bank decided the roles were not needed before the voice bot had been shown to reduce the work. The union said call numbers were rising. Do first · Effort: low (days, one person) Evidence: Common practice
• Map tasks before deciding what to automate The bank later said its assessment “did not adequately consider all relevant business considerations”. Do first · Effort: low (days, one person) Evidence: Moderate

What the company changed afterwards

• When AI output goes wrong, correct it fast and in the open About a month after the announcement, the bank said publicly that its assessment was an error, apologised to the staff and said it was reviewing its internal processes. Do next · Effort: low (days, one person) Evidence: Emerging

Sources

1. Finance Sector Union (28 July 2025). Voice bot to replace CBA jobs: urgent union meeting. fsunion.org.au
2. Information Age, Australian Computer Society (21 August 2025). CBA reverses AI-driven job cuts, admits ‘error’. Quotes the bank’s spokesperson and the Finance Sector Union. ia.acs.org.au