Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has gone live with a new chatbot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assist customers with more than 200 banking tasks.

Named Ceba, the chatbot is designed to help customers complete banking activities such as activating their card, checking their account balance, making payments and getting cardless cash.

The technology is currently available to 20 per cent of CBA’s NetBank customers, and will be rolled out to all 6.2 million NetBank and CommBank app customers in the coming weeks.

Available 24/7, Ceba will be able to recognise approximately 60,000 different ways in which customers could ask for the 200 banking tasks, and will eventually be able to tell customers what they are spending their money on.

Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager for digital, Pete Steel, noted that artificial intelligence will play an increasingly important role as digital banking moves beyond just enabling transactions.

“Banks are moving towards providing personalised and insightful online banking experiences for our customers, and artificial intelligence along with the powerful technology behind it sits at the centre of this shift,” he said.

“What’s exciting about Ceba is that it will be able to do the banking for our customers rather than just provide instructions on how to do it. As our customers increasingly transact online, we have continued to develop additional channels to respond to their preferences, and still be able to provide valuable and personalised banking experiences.”

The bank added that Ceba is also intended to provide “a seamless end-to-end experience” if a customer needs to speak to a person, such as reporting fraud or applying for a product. It is housed within Commonwealth Bank’s own systems, offering a secure banking channel.

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