An Australian bank fired an employee after 25 years of service — but only after she trained the AI that replaced her.
Australia’s Commonwealth Bank fired Catherine Sullivan, a 63-year-old employee, who had worked in customer support for a quarter century. Her July termination came shortly after she helped improve the bank’s AI chatbot, which ultimately replaced her, reports Daily Mail.
Sullivan says the layoff came as a complete shock to her and her colleagues. Making matters worse, the bank ghosted her — she received answers to her questions only eight business days after being let go.
Sullivan had been writing response scripts for the corporate Bumblebee AI bot and would step in when it couldn’t answer customer queries. According to her, she essentially trained the very bot that eventually replaced her. While she welcomes technologies that improve service quality, she believes employees need legal protections regarding their intellectual property and potential AI displacement.
The bank later admitted it had miscalculated by firing 45 people. Customer call volumes surged dramatically — the AI couldn’t fully replace human workers. The bank rolled back the decision, apologized, offered employees their jobs back, and provided support. However, Sullivan chose to move on, saying the new position — like her previous one — offered no guarantees.
The bank continues implementing AI and partnered with OpenAI in August. The collaboration aims to combat fraud, financial crimes, and cybercrime.
AI isn’t the only threat to the bank’s staff. In recent months, Commonwealth Bank laid off over 300 employees and instead hired about 100 workers in India, including data engineers, developers, and development managers.
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