Bank Forced To Rehire Workers After Lying About Chatbot Productivity, Union Says
(Thursday August 21, 2025 @05:40PM (BeauHD)
from the jumping-the-gun dept.)
- Reference: 0178811454
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/08/21/1919258/bank-forced-to-rehire-workers-after-lying-about-chatbot-productivity-union-says
- Source link:
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
> As banks around the world prepare to replace many thousands of workers with AI, Australia's biggest bank is scrambling to rehire 45 workers after [1]allegedly lying about chatbots besting staff by handling higher call volumes . In [2]a statement Thursday flagged by [3]Bloomberg , Australia's main financial services union, the Finance Sector Union (FSU), claimed a "massive win" for 45 union members whom the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) had replaced with an AI-powered "voice bot."
>
> The FSU noted that some of these workers had been with CBA for decades. Those workers in particular were shocked when CBA announced last month that their jobs had become redundant. At that time, CBA claimed that launching the chatbot supposedly "led to a reduction in call volumes" by 2,000 a week, FSU said. But "this was an outright lie," fired workers told FSU. Instead, call volumes had been increasing at the time they were dismissed, with CBA supposedly "scrambling" -- offering staff overtime and redirecting management to join workers answering phones to keep up.
>
> To uncover the truth, FSU escalated the dispute to a fair work tribunal, where the union accused CBA of failing to explain how workers' roles were ruled redundant. The union also alleged that CBA was hiring for similar roles in India, Bloomberg noted, which made it appear that CBA had perhaps used the chatbot to cover up a shady pivot to outsource jobs. While the dispute was being weighed, CBA admitted that "they didn't properly consider that an increase in calls" happening while staff was being fired "would continue over a number of months," FSU said. "This error meant the roles were not redundant," CBA confirmed at the tribunal. Now, CBA has apologized to the fired workers. A spokesperson told Bloomberg that they can choose to come back to their prior roles, seek another position, or leave the firm with an exit payment.
"We have apologized to the employees concerned and acknowledge we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required," CBA's spokesperson told Bloomberg.
The FSU said that "the damage has already been done." These employees "have had to endure the stress and worry of facing redundancy" and were "suddenly confronted with the prospect of being unable to pay their bills." FSU warned that CBA's flip-flopping on AI serves as a "stark reminder to all of us that we can never trust employers to do the right thing by workers, and change can happen at any time and impact any one of us."
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/bank-forced-to-rehire-workers-after-lying-about-chatbot-productivity-union-says/
[2] https://www.fsunion.org.au/Hub/Content/News_and_publications/Member_updates/2025/WIN-CBA-backflips-on-customer-service-job-cuts.aspx
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-21/commonwealth-bank-reverses-job-cuts-decision-over-ai-chatbots
> As banks around the world prepare to replace many thousands of workers with AI, Australia's biggest bank is scrambling to rehire 45 workers after [1]allegedly lying about chatbots besting staff by handling higher call volumes . In [2]a statement Thursday flagged by [3]Bloomberg , Australia's main financial services union, the Finance Sector Union (FSU), claimed a "massive win" for 45 union members whom the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) had replaced with an AI-powered "voice bot."
>
> The FSU noted that some of these workers had been with CBA for decades. Those workers in particular were shocked when CBA announced last month that their jobs had become redundant. At that time, CBA claimed that launching the chatbot supposedly "led to a reduction in call volumes" by 2,000 a week, FSU said. But "this was an outright lie," fired workers told FSU. Instead, call volumes had been increasing at the time they were dismissed, with CBA supposedly "scrambling" -- offering staff overtime and redirecting management to join workers answering phones to keep up.
>
> To uncover the truth, FSU escalated the dispute to a fair work tribunal, where the union accused CBA of failing to explain how workers' roles were ruled redundant. The union also alleged that CBA was hiring for similar roles in India, Bloomberg noted, which made it appear that CBA had perhaps used the chatbot to cover up a shady pivot to outsource jobs. While the dispute was being weighed, CBA admitted that "they didn't properly consider that an increase in calls" happening while staff was being fired "would continue over a number of months," FSU said. "This error meant the roles were not redundant," CBA confirmed at the tribunal. Now, CBA has apologized to the fired workers. A spokesperson told Bloomberg that they can choose to come back to their prior roles, seek another position, or leave the firm with an exit payment.
"We have apologized to the employees concerned and acknowledge we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required," CBA's spokesperson told Bloomberg.
The FSU said that "the damage has already been done." These employees "have had to endure the stress and worry of facing redundancy" and were "suddenly confronted with the prospect of being unable to pay their bills." FSU warned that CBA's flip-flopping on AI serves as a "stark reminder to all of us that we can never trust employers to do the right thing by workers, and change can happen at any time and impact any one of us."
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/bank-forced-to-rehire-workers-after-lying-about-chatbot-productivity-union-says/
[2] https://www.fsunion.org.au/Hub/Content/News_and_publications/Member_updates/2025/WIN-CBA-backflips-on-customer-service-job-cuts.aspx
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-21/commonwealth-bank-reverses-job-cuts-decision-over-ai-chatbots
Texan AI (Score:3)
by Fons_de_spons ( 1311177 )
But... but... the AI was a lot more efficient. They used the AI to make the caller from India sound like a Texan. Can’t beat that with a stick.
Re: (Score:1)
by Tablizer ( 95088 )
> used the AI to make the caller from India sound like a Texan
"I recon we all should do the needful thang, Yeehawwl!"
More signs the AI bubble is (Score:1)
by Tablizer ( 95088 )
...unravelling. Wait, can bubbles unravel, or only pop?
CBA customer service is in decline (Score:2)
by _merlin ( 160982 )
Quality of CBA's phone support has gone downhill rapidly since a high point around 2010. They tried blaming COVID and other crap, but they just don't have enough phone staff any more. They went from opening a bunch of new branches to closing a whole lot of branches. The trouble is, the rest of the Australian banks are even worse.
Not unexpected (Score:4, Insightful)
I am expecting more of these stories in the next few months, where organizations find out that the current "AI"-promises are pretty empty, after all. Also reminds me of the DOGE fiasco.
Re: (Score:2)
Speaking of that other failure, It's been reported the total verifiable savings was approximately [1]$1.4 billion [politico.com]. No, that is not missing any numbers.
For comparison, the F-35 program has an annual budget of $12 billion. That means, 11.7% of the annual F-35 program was saved as a one-time reduction in overall contract expenditures.
Fascinating.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/12/trump-doge-contract-claims-savings-inflation-00498178
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. The most grand promises and announcements, followed by ... essentially nothing. Who falls for these fraudsters?
Re: (Score:2)
I mean, the hype was discussed in all mainstream media. The end result is being discussed on slashdot. Could we say 99.99% of the population (verified by the OMUS)?
Re: Not unexpected (Score:1)
This might run deeper and farther than the DOGE. The so called AI, besides being proved as not that revolutionary to business bottom lines (MIT studies), has also been a major reshaper of the job industry. There will come a point when the merry go around stops. Thatâ(TM)s when the trillions of dollars invested in the AI boom is going to bust. Companies like CBA are crooks and wanted to get rid of their aging staff blaming AI. But there are behemoths invested in AI seriously believing that it could tran
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Fortunately, the "dot com" idiocy did not really touch me, even if I watched it in fascination from outside. I agree that apparently, many "decision makers" in companies like Microsoft and Google really believe that the current hype-"AI" will transform everything, and do so against all evidence. And the body of evidence that in many uses, LLMs are much more of a problem than a solution (e.g. 50% of all AI code seems to have serious security problems in a time where pressure from attackers is high an
Re: (Score:2)
> I am expecting more of these stories in the next few months, where organizations find out that the current "AI"-promises are pretty empty, after all.
I agree we'll see more stories like this, but that isn't quite the understanding I came away with from this article. I'm under the impression that it is not merely the case that the AI solution didn't live up to expectations (though that may also have been true), but that AI was being used as a red herring to justify cutting a huge chunk of the workforce and replacing them with cheaper labour (by outsourcing). From the summary: "The union also alleged that CBA was hiring for similar roles in India, Bloomber
Re: (Score:2)
In part, yes. But that lie by misdirection only worked because the people doing the lying did believe the lie was credible.
Re: (Score:3)
In this case this wasn't about AI underperforming what was promised, but AI performance being exaggerated to cover the company's tracks as it offshored jobs to India. The intent was to use AI as an excuse to let Australian workers go, then to quietly replace them with Indian ones.
I don't think AI promises are "empty", but there is a lot of irrational enthusiasm out there getting ahead of the technology. I think for sure there are plenty of technical failures arising from technlogical hubris and naivite.