NAB Is Building an "AI Science" Team
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Details
- Date Published
- 28 Apr 2026
- Priority Score
- 2
- Australian
- Yes
- Created
- 28 Apr 2026, 04:00 am
Description
Will build AI systems and products inhouse.
Summary
National Australia Bank (NAB) is establishing a dedicated 'AI science' team led by former McKinsey QuantumBlack expert George Mathews to internalize development of AI agent architectures and evaluation methodologies. The initiative emphasizes building safe, enterprise-scale AI systems with foundational in-house capabilities rather than relying solely on third-party solutions. While focused on commercial banking operations, the move reflects a growing trend in Australian financial services to address safety and reliability in agentic AI systems. This development highlights the increasing importance of rigorous evaluation frameworks for managing operational and systemic risks associated with frontier AI deployment in critical infrastructure.
Body
NAB is assembling an “AI science” team to drive adoption of the technology across the bank, headed up by a data scientist from McKinsey’s AI arm, QuantumBlack.
The bank’s chief AI officer Mahya Knox said that the team “will play an integral part in building rigorous AI agent architecture, evaluation methodology and new AI products, ensuring the ability to operate these components safely for the whole bank and create outstanding customer experiences.”
“As we implement AI safely and at scale, we must have the right skills, capabilities and experience,” Knox said in a statement.
“We want to build that foundational capability in-house, helping us create safe and valuable solutions that deliver for the whole enterprise.”
The AI science team will be led by George Mathews, who joins NAB from McKinsey’s AI arm QuantumBlack where he was most recently the senior principal data scientist.
Mathews also has prior experience with CSIRO’s Data61.
The AI science team is expected to get “hands-on” with building AI systems and products.
It will ultimately comprise a multi-disciplinary squad of AI scientists, AI engineers, data scientists, engineers, product managers and designers, with the bank recruiting to add to the nascent function.