How Commonwealth Bank and Microsoft are reimagining the future of customer service
Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Microsoft have built an AI-powered omni-channel customer service platform handling over two million monthly interactions, replacing legacy systems with a unified system that routes queries intelligently between AI and human agents.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Executive General Manager of Customer Service Direct, Martin Lindsay, initiated a project in early 2024 to consolidate fragmented contact center systems into a single AI-driven platform. The initiative aimed to replace a retiring virtual chatbot and address rising customer expectations for immediate, always-on support. The bank collaborated closely with Microsoft engineers to co-develop the solution, leveraging Microsoft’s AI platform, including Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Foundry.
The platform uses a central AI orchestration agent to interpret customer intent and route interactions dynamically. Simple queries are handled by conversational AI, while regulated processes like fraud disputes follow predefined paths. Sensitive or nuanced conversations are escalated to human specialists with full context preserved. Nearly 700 existing chatbot topics were modernized and migrated into Copilot Studio, and in November 2024, Australia’s first generative AI banking chatbot was launched as part of the broader system.
The project involved deep co-engineering, including a three-week collaboration at Microsoft’s headquarters near Seattle, where CommBank engineers validated new AI capabilities against real banking scenarios. Microsoft engineers later embedded in Sydney to support deployment into a live environment handling 50,000 daily phone calls. The partnership focused on operational readiness, deployment safeguards, and automated escalation paths to mitigate risks in a regulated banking environment.
By May 2026, 84.6% of self-service messaging interactions were resolved end-to-end within the messaging channel. The system automatically summarizes conversations for frontline staff and provides AI-assisted policy surfacing. CommBank now plans to extend the platform across the entire bank, aiming to scale conversational experiences from chat and voice to address broader customer needs across Australia.