Macquarie Bank rolls out AI agent to personalise customer support

Macquarie Bank has launched Q, a new artificial intelligence (AI) agent that provides instant, personalised assistance to customers via its mobile app and online banking platform.

Powered by what the bank calls “Macquarie Intelligence”, the system uses advanced natural language processing to handle everyday banking queries. The launch is part of efforts by the Australian banking sector to move away from traditional rule-based chatbots to more sophisticated AI agents.

According to the bank, Q is available 24/7 to answer common questions on daily payment limits and transaction processing times. However, it is designed with a specific focus on user experience during escalation. If a query falls outside Q’s current capabilities, it connects the user to a human agent.

But unlike traditional live chats that require a customer to stare at a waiting screen, the hand-off shifts to an asynchronous messaging model similar to messaging apps, allowing consumers to step away and return when a response from the human agent is ready.

Ashwin Sinha, chief digital, data and AI officer at Macquarie, said the AI agent was designed by looking at technology leaders outside the financial services sector.

“We all now expect instant, seamless and personalised support in every aspect of our lives, and that’s what we’re offering with Q,” Sinha said. “In designing our digital banking experiences, we look beyond financial services to understand customer trends.”

Macquarie has outlined a roadmap to expand Q’s capabilities, from reactive support to providing personalised spending insights by category or merchant. Future updates will allow customers to query specific spending categories, such as “How much have I spent on groceries this year?”, or request predictive analytics for savings goals, such as calculating how long it will take to save for a holiday.

“Q is designed to evolve quickly as more people use it, and we’ll keep expanding its capabilities with new features based on real customer feedback,” Sinha said. “It’s about giving our customers more control, confidence and convenience in how they manage their money.”

The bank stressed that security remains central to the deployment, utilising two-factor authentication and encryption to protect conversation data.

Macquarie’s deployment of Q comes as Australia’s Big Four banks aggressively pursue their AI strategies. For example, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has been using generative AI to combat scams and improve customer engagement, as well as machine learning to help customers predict future bills and manage spending, among other AI use cases.

Meanwhile, National Australia Bank has rolled out AI tools to assess home loans, transform software development, and detect fraud. Westpac has historically utilised its Wendy chatbot and has partnered with Accenture to deploy AI agents across areas such as product and customer service.

Other Australian organisations that have adopted AI include retail giant Woolworths Group, which will enhance its digital shopping assistant using Google Cloud’s agentic AI platform; graphic design firm Canva, which is training its staff on a low-code AI platform and agentic AI tools; and insurance firm Suncorp, which has deployed AI-enabled chatbots to serve customers through some two million conversations a year. 

According to research by Cisco and the Governance Institute of Australia, Australian organisations are lagging behind their regional peers in adopting AI, putting A$142bn worth of economic opportunity at risk.

Key AI adoption challenges faced by Australian firms include a lack of governance readiness, the use of shadow AI tools by employees, a lack of formal training, and uncertainty about how to measure returns from AI investments.