That's the view of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which is already eying agents that can complete the income verification and other stages of a borrowing application.
They aren't quite there yet, but the nation's biggest bank has taken a step forward after revealing it's been pilot testing the Commbank Companion, an agentic AI-powered tool that will live inside its mobile banking app.
The tool, the bank says, will allow retail and business customers to ask questions and find information about their goals - like buying a home, financial health, cash flows and savings - using the customers' own readily available information, completely human-free.
However, the conversational tool won't be making direct recommendations about bank products, given it's not meant - or allowed - to substitute for financial advice due to banking industry rules and regulations.
The theory is that the customer will be in control, especially in terms of what they choose to do next, subject to terms and conditions.
This is a big step up from a banking chatbot, CBA says, because the companion can take action as it resolves questions, acting intuitively, as it gets to know you and your likes and preferences.
For example, say "Alex", 28, wants to buy a home and one weekend sees a property that she likes. In CBA's world, she would ask the companion how much it's worth and how to reach her deposit goals, and receive the answers in real time. With a plan now in place, the companion would continue to act as a guide to help Alex save.Â
"This certainly takes us beyond ... customer-facing chatbots. This goes well beyond that," general manager of customer channel and data Sam Hemphill said.
CBA claims the companion is the first customer-facing front-end agent to be developed by a big four bank in Australia. Macquarie Bank, which isn't a big four, offers Q on its app, which it describes as an agentic support tool.
"This is going to become a massively intense competitive space," CBA's group head of retail banking services Angus Sullivan said.
"My expectation is that the native app experience will become increasingly a conversational and agentic digital experience at the core of how our customers engage."
The current banking app is used by more than nine million Australians - about 33 per cent of the population - each day, who on average log on 1.4 times a day, according to CBA data.
The companion is already being tested by 2,000 bank employees and 10,000 small business customers, and will be rolled out in stages.
It's set to go 'live' with thousands of retail and business customers by the end of June.
The CommBank Companion reveal comes ahead of the bank's AI client conference in Sydney on Tuesday, where the heads of OpenAI, Coles and Canva will be speaking about the outlook for AI adoption.
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