Commonwealth Bank (CommBank) has appointed professor Mary-Anne Williams (pictured) as its first chief AI scientist following an extensive global search, the bank announced Monday.
Williams joins from the University of New South Wales, where she held the position of Michael J. Crouch Chair for Innovation and served as founder and lead of the UNSW Business AI Lab, as well as deputy director of the UNSW AI Institute. She is also a fellow at Stanford University and a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, one of the foremost international bodies in the field.
In her new role, Williams will lead CommBank’s team of Distinguished AI Scientists – a group of researchers with global experience specialising in machine learning, responsible AI, AI security, and generative AI. She will also play a central role in shaping the bank’s AI research agenda and overseeing the continued application of responsible AI across the organisation.
Her research focuses on how organisations manage and coordinate generative AI agents to drive innovation, an area of growing importance as businesses move from experimenting with AI to deploying AI at scale.
The appointment follows a model used by leading technology and financial services companies in the United States, which have recruited senior AI figures directly from academia on the basis that frontier research expertise is essential to building and scaling AI responsibly.
Chief AI officer Ranil Boteju, who recently joined CommBank, said the creation of the role reflected the bank’s broader ambitions.
“Mary-Anne is one of Australia’s most respected AI leaders and brings a rare combination of academic leadership, commercial insight, and deep technical expertise that will help accelerate our AI strategy. She will help us explore the boundaries of what’s possible with AI while taking a leadership role in the continued application of responsible AI in ways that make a real difference for our customers,” Boteju said.
Williams acknowledged the scale of the opportunity ahead.
“CommBank has built one of the most advanced AI capabilities of any bank in the world, and I’m excited to be joining at such a pivotal moment. The opportunity to work alongside exceptional technologists and researchers and help shape how AI is applied at scale for millions of Australians is a genuine privilege. My focus will be on advancing our understanding of the societal implications of AI and supporting continued responsible AI innovation across CommBank,” she said.
CommBank was ranked fourth globally and first in Asia Pacific in the 2025 Evident AI Index, which measures AI maturity across the banking sector.
