National Australia Bank has rolled out an internal AI tool called Ruby to more than 40,000 staff, chief executive Andrew Irvine revealed on a media call for the bank’s 2026 full-year results, iTnews reports.
Irvine said Ruby is built on an Anthropic platform and will be broadly available to staff for personal productivity.
Squads for 50 more uses
NAB has set up around 50 business-led squads from different divisions over the past year, working with partners including Anthropic and AWS. They are chasing use cases that Irvine said offer significant value for customers, staff or shareholders.
He tied these to the bank’s three priorities: business banking, deposits and home lending. One example he gave was helping business bankers write credit memos much faster.
Claimed gains
Unlike Westpac, which recently put a dollar figure on its AI savings, NAB gave percentages in its results presentation:
- an 18% increase in its change delivery cycle, letting it ship more features from its investment budget
- a 20% cut in the time needed to approve business loans, credited to agentic AI.
These figures are NAB’s own and have not been independently checked.
Job cuts in the background
The AI push comes as NAB carries out a planned reduction of about 2,500 roles, announced in October. The Australian Financial Review has reported that about 1,200 of those cuts are expected to come from technology and AI teams. The Finance Sector Union has raised concerns that AI investment is contributing to the job losses.
NAB reported a full-year net profit of $6.14 billion.
