Commonwealth Bank has deployed an advanced agentic AI system designed to help detect emerging fraud and scam patterns in transaction and payments data and generate the rules needed to help intercept them.
The investment is part of CommBank's $1 billion annual commitment to help safeguard customers from fraud, scams, cyber threats and financial crime.
CommBank has a range of AI capabilities embedded in its advanced fraud protection systems, which monitor more than 80 million signals each day, including transactions, card and online payments and interactions with digital banking channels.
Executive General Manager of Fraud and Scams, James Roberts, said the agent builds on these foundations and helps improve the bank's ability to respond rapidly to evolving threats.
"When suspicious patterns are identified, the system quickly assesses their severity, analyses context, and proposes new detection rules to help intercept them. The new agent goes beyond traditional AI by not only rapidly identifying new threats but also determining how it can seek to disrupt them," Mr Roberts said.
"The agent operates around the clock, continuously monitoring activity and adapting to emerging threats."
Mr Roberts said new detection rules are reviewed and approved by CommBank's fraud analytics team prior to implementation, a process known as human-in-the-loop oversight.
Each day, CommBank processes more than 20 million payments on average and sends more than 40,000 proactive warning alerts on average to customers via the CommBank app. The bank's fraud detection technology has played a role in helping to reduce fraud losses by over 20% in the first half of the 2026 financial year compared to the first half of the 2025 financial year.
The agent has also contributed to developing or updating three quarters of CommBank's card fraud rules, which are used to identify potential fraud.
"The technology allows us to identify unusual events in highly complex patterns of activity at far greater speed and scale, helping us detect emerging threats sooner and update our controls faster," Mr Roberts said.
CommBank's in-house data science and engineering teams developed the system in three months, with ongoing testing demonstrating strong fraud detection outcomes.
The initiative is part of CommBank's strategy to embed advanced AI into core operations and enhance customer outcomes. It reinforces CommBank's position among the top four banks globally for AI maturity in the 2025 Evident AI Index.
AI models used across the bank are governed by CommBank's risk management frameworks and policies, with clear human accountability for outcomes.
The system is built on Snowflake's data cloud and powered by CommBank's cloud-based core banking platform , enabling enhanced reliability and seamless access to rich, real-time data to support advanced AI capabilities.
