Published on the 20/05/2026 | Written by Heather Wright
Embed, learn, then scale at home…
Commonwealth Bank is doubling down on its ‘learning outpost’ model, opening a second US tech hub in San Francisco to embed Australian engineers alongside ‘frontier AI leaders’ – and bring those learnings back at scale.
The new tech hub is the second State-side for CBA – it opened one in Seattle last March – and places ‘squads in residence’ – aka CommBank engineers and technologists – in what the bank describes as ‘one of the world’s most concentrated AI ecosystems’, working directly with partners such as OpenAI, AWS, Anthropic and Microsoft.
“The goal is to have them take away all the learning… and bring [it] back to Australia, to become force multipliers, and scale and compound that capability across our 10,000-plus technologists.”
Matt Comyn, CommBank CEO, says the hub will give the bank’s engineers and technologists access to world-class tools, expertise and partners.
The hub reflects a broader strategy for the bank: Proximity to where AI models are being built and structured pathways to transfer knowledge back to Australia’s engineering workforce.
“This is part of our commitment to working at the frontier of technology, alongside leading global partners,” Comyn says. “We’re investing significantly in our people and capability, because attracting and supporting the best talent means giving them access to the best tools, expertise and opportunities globally.”
Bringing San Francisco skills back
The San Francisco hub is designed as a rotation model. Engineers, product owners and data scientists travel in small squads for short residencies working alongside AI partners and observing how leading organisations are applying new tools and techniques.
For CommBank, the goal is not simply exposure, but replication. Martha McKeen, CommBank lead for AI powered engineering and international tech hubs, says the goal is for the cohorts to take away all the learning they can from the strategic partners, taking that back to Australia to become ‘force multipliers’ and scale and compound that capability across the bank’s technology workforce of more than 10,000 staff.
“Our tech hubs are all about creating incredible surfaces for learning,” McKeen says.
The model builds on earlier success in Seattle, where more than 100 engineers have already participated in similar rotations.
In Seattle, the first cohort back in early 2025 were focused on learning to fast-track adoption of agentic AI and genAI powered solutions to help small business banking customers manage their finances and run their businesses. A second cohort looked at modernising testing to respond to customer feedback faster.
Rodrigo Castillo, CommBank co-CIO central technology, says the new hub will help the bank continue to scale AI solutions, connecting internal teams with where new models are being created. “What we are looking for is connectivity between our teams and places where AI models are being created here in the heart of San Francisco.”
Learnings beyond the tools
For engineers taking part, the value is not limited to access to tools. CBA says it extends to exposure to how leading organisations structure work, iterate on products and integrate AI across the software development lifecycle.
George Beniac, CommBank crew lead, core foundations, says working with OpenAI in San Francisco has changed the way his learning squad is thinking about how it can use AI from planning to product design, to code development and deployment.
Product owner for AI powered engineering, Henry Chan, says the environment itself plays a role in shaping thinking.
“Very quickly, from the moment you land in San Francisco, you notice all the billboards are AI-related. You realise this environment is, by default, AI-powered. Your brain automatically switches.”
For Chan one of the things his team went to San Francisco to learn was how other leading companies were able to move so quickly and how they’ve altered or augmented their product delivery lifecycles over the last couple of years. (His insight: The importance of giving team members the freedom to experiment using AI to prototype, translating thoughts into real life use cases.)
Squads at the hub have also been looking at how AI is reshaping the way software is designed, built and maintained, with a focus on AI-powered engineering. “That is, giving our engineers the emerging best-of-breed, AI-powered engineering tools,” McKeen says. “These tools help them in their everyday workflows, and relieve the toil and burden of manual tasks and allows them to focus on what matters most.
The bank says more than 70 percent of its engineering teams are already using AI tools, with the new hub aimed at accelerating that adoption and embedding more consistent ways of working across teams.
Other Australian organisations are taking similar steps. Telstra partnered with professional services company Accenture last year to launch an AI ‘innovation and research hub’ in Silicon Valley, where Telstra works with partners including AWS, Databricks and Microsoft to build and test AI-based services. However, rather than flying in teams, the Telstra-Accenture joint venture appears to be more of a virtual offering, connecting with teams in Sydney, Melbourne and Bangalore and creating a ‘virtual door’ where teams can ideate, collaborate, build and test in a secure environment.
Australian-founded design platform Canva also expanded its presence in San Francisco last year, positioning the city as a key hub in its global operations and placing teams closer to talent, capital and early adopters.
CommBank’s hub model is built around turning short-term exposure into scaled capability. Engineers are expected to return and apply what they’ve learned across the organisation, embedding new approaches to prototyping, collaboration and AI-assisted development. For organisations across Australia and New Zealand, the key question is not access to new technology, but how effectively those practices can be distributed and embedded across teams.
