CBA had relied on contractors at a call centre near Johannesburg operated by South African outsourcing provider Nutun to handle its customer chat service. As the bank integrated AI into that system, Nutun staff described a steady drop in human-handled queries.
People familiar with the arrangement said CBA has been scaling back its contract with Nutun as the automation rollout deepens.
Current and former Nutun workers reported that AI tools now process a growing share of the conversations they once managed manually. The shift has translated into widespread job losses across the offshore team that supported CBA’s digital channels.
One source familiar with the internal modelling told Bloomberg the restructuring is expected to cut the bank’s costs by tens of millions of dollars annually. The savings come from both lower labour spending and a leaner outsourcing footprint.
