H2O.ai Raises $100M at a $1.6B Pre-Money Valuation.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AX) said on Monday it acquired a minority stake in a Silicon Valley-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm, H2O.ai Inc, in a bid to provide smarter and personalised products to its customers base.

CBA, Australia’s biggest lender, said it would partner to use H2O.ai cloud-based machine learning platform across its operations to developing AI-based products, giving it a lead against its rivals in designing smart financial products. CBA Chief Executive Matt Comyn said they see a broad application for AI and machine learning technology right across our business – in operational processes, protecting customers from fraud, lending decisions, and risk management. The lender did not disclose the stake it had acquired in the artificial intelligence firm.

H2O.ai will also help us better predict bills and forecast cash flows for both retail and business customers to plan ahead. Customers want to be in control, and through the combination of our award-winning app, powered by artificial intelligence, we can deliver products and services at the moment to manage unexpected expenses or irregular incomes.

CommBank Chief Executive Officer, Matt Comyn, said the collaboration would bolster the bank’s analytic capabilities and help improve the predictive accuracy of existing models, so we’re able to offer more personalised and targeted solutions at a faster rate.