Commonwealth Bank reverses AI voice bot layoffs

Aug 2025

Commonwealth Bank replaced 45 call-centre agents with an AI voice bot in July 2025, then apologised, rehired staff, and admitted the rollout tanked service levels after call queues exploded and managers had to jump back on the phones.

Incident Details

Perpetrator:Operations Leadership

Severity:Facepalm

Blast Radius:Customers saw long waits, overtime costs spiked, and leadership publicly reversed the redundancies after the rushed deployment failed.

Tech Stack

AI voice botGenerative AI chatbotContact centre automation

References

Twenty44 - Commonwealth Bank admits replacing customer service jobs with AI was a mistake ↗Bloomberg - Commonwealth Bank reverses job cuts decision over AI chatbots ↗Finextra - CommBank reverses plan to replace call centre staff with AI ↗