CommBank names UNSW’s Mary-Anne Williams as chief AI strategist

Wiliams will lead CommBank’s team of AI scientists.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) has appointed Professor Mary-Anne Williams as its first chief AI strategist.

Williams joins CommBank from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where she is the current Michael J Crouch chair for innovation. She is also the founder and lead of the UNSW Business AI lab, and the deputy director of the UNSW AI Institute.

Williams is also a fellow at Stanford University, and a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAI), an international body for AI research.

In her new role, Williams will lead CommBank’s team of AI scientists, which have experience in machine learning, responsible AI, AI security, and generative AI.

She is expected to play a central role in shaping CommBank’s AI research agenda, in attracting and developing AI talent, and supporting the continued application of responsible AI in the bank, CommBank said.