Did a bank have to rehire fired employees after their AI replacement was bad at the job?

Here’s a cautionary tale for companies looking to replace human workers with artificial intelligence. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has had to ask recently laid-off employees to return after the AI it implemented to replace them wasn’t up to the task.

It began when the bank announced last month that 45 customer service workers would be laid off and a new AI “voice bot” would take their place. While the bank claimed that the chatbot significantly reduced call volume, the workers’ union, Finance Sector Union (FSU), says it has found that isn’t the case. According to FSU’s findings, “call volumes were in fact increasing and CBA was scrambling to manage the situation by offering staff overtime and directing Team Leaders to answer calls.”

Following a workplace relations tribunal with FSU, the bank has gone back on its statement and said it “did not adequately consider all relevant business considerations and this error meant the roles were not redundant.” CBA has offered several options to the 45 fired employees, one of which includes being reinstated. “We have apologized to the employees concerned and acknowledge we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required,” a CBA spokesperson said.