Tag Archives: CBA

August 5, 2026 · 20:42

Wrong footing?

This happens, we all get our footing wrong, even I. As such I had my ‘ideas’ about Ahmed Mawlana, nothing bad. But whilst we see ‘Has the UAE’s meteoric rise reached its limit?’ Which is given to us by the Middle East Eye (at https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/has-uaes-meteoric-rise-reached-its-limit), so Ahmed Mawlana is a researcher specialising in International Relations and Security Affairs. He holds an MA in international relations from Sabahattin Zaim University in Istanbul, so as I see it, he is no grocery wannabe. And I am fine with that. So as we see “In less than two decades, Abu Dhabi has transformed itself from a relatively low-profile Gulf state into one of the region’s most assertive powers. How did a country of around one million citizens acquire such an outsized regional role? The UAE’s rise is linked to its ability to capitalise on successive regional crises, beginning with the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, accelerating with the Arab Spring, and gaining strength amid Washington’s declining engagement in the Middle East.” He ends the article with “Ultimately, the principal constraint on the Emirati model is structural. The UAE possesses immense financial resources and an extensive network of international partnerships, but it remains a small state with a limited citizen population and little strategic depth – making it difficult to sustain prolonged regional crises, or to confront larger powers directly.”

I get what he write and there is logic in this, but I also see what the UAE has achieved and whilst I was never there, YouTube has been very vocal (it’s YouTube creators) to show us all what the UAE has achieved. In support of my way of thinking is the Reuters article that gives us ‘UAE non-oil growth hits four-month high in July, PMI shows’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/uae-non-oil-growth-hits-four-month-high-july-pmi-shows-2026-08-05/) where we see: “The United Arab Emirates’ non-oil private sector grew at its fastest pace in four months in July as new orders climbed to a ‌five-month high and export business rose, a business survey showed on Wednesday.” As I see it, the non-oil part is essential here. We see the growing tourism and service settings. We see additional maritime growth and that is merely the beginning. The UAE has a lot to gain in all this, which is why I have ‘issues’ with the setting of Ahmed Mawlana. He might be correct, but the term “meteoric rise reached its limit” can be explained in a few ways. One of them is that the stellar growth might be gone. I don’t think so, especially as tourism can still grow a lot more, but that is possible. Still as we see Real Estate and tourism grow, there is still the difference between strong growth and meteoric rise, so whilst the second has reached its peak the first one is still within the grasp of the UAE. Personally I think it is becoming time to make Iran extinct. A shameful thought to have, nut they did that to themselves and I created 4-5 military IP’s to make something according to that need happen (I am more of a surgical instrument) why kill when you can destroy their abilities and commodities so they destroy themselves. I am at times that simple.

So whilst we get the setting that Reuters gives (just a few)

Firms linked this to easing regional tensions and stronger activity across the Gulf.
Employment returned to growth after June’s steep drop.
Business confidence weakened for a third straight month to its lowest since March.
Backlogs of work rose at the strongest rate in four months, reflecting firmer demand and freight congestion.
Input cost inflation edged closer to April’s recent peak.
Firms raised selling prices again, but only mildly.

Which is also slightly debatable. For instance we see “Business confidence weakened for a third straight month to its lowest since March”, which I accept as one of the given facts, but at this point I wonder how that confidence level is when compared to the US economy setting of the United States? This question is formed as Al Jazeera gives us ‘Why did the US economy slow down?’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/8/4/why-did-the-us-economy-slow-down) where we see “The US economy slowed more than expected, but it’s not because Americans stopped spending. So what really happened? The answer lies in how economic growth is measured, and America’s massive investment in artificial intelligence”, yet the other (not given fact) is that players like Deloitte give us “While broad corporate spending is skyrocketing, tangible financial returns often take two to four years to materialize instead of the usual 7 to 12 months for standard tech” and I have a problem with that. Some sources give us “Studies indicate that up to 95% of early generative AI pilots struggle to show a clear positive financial return because tools are deployed without changing underlying workflow” and I see the class actions forming and that is messing with the RoI (Return on Investment) as well. All this is making the US Economy not a volleyball but a paintball at best and anyone who gets hit by its paint is heading for stormy weathers (not the girl), although the effect are the same, but not as pleasurable. In all this, there is optionally a cause for not seeing meteoric rise but strong growth is still on the table, no matter how muddy the United States administration makes some ‘facts’ look. And in all this, I till see plenty of options for the UAE, I merely think that they need to go of the AI horse. The AI is lousy and all AI is Fake AI (as I personally see it), so why bury yourself in 3-8 years of turnaround (I definitely disagree with the Deloitte numbers. I reckon that the UAE has a better setting throwing themselves on actual programming and creating stuff that has the turnaround time of 7-12 months. Let big tech break their teeth on tech that is over a decade away. They might survive, others will not and I do not trust the settings that the United States are throwing out there. Too much of it is not validated and as I perceive it not verified in any way. The UAE has actual issues to face (that terrorist state Iran) and holding their coffers in a 3 to 8 years wait state is no solution.

Perhaps I am seeing this wrong, these fake AI have real options, ML and DL are great tools (I use the term DML as they are combining the two) and I have seen great solutions, but that setting in a 3-7 years setting is not a real solution. Consider the issues that some are reconsidering idea that are out there ‘How Commonwealth Bank and Microsoft are reimagining the future of customer service’, which I see as nothing more that the setting that NICE and CX One already have. So whilst that is happening. I wrote ‘Two paths to similar stages’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/30/two-paths-to-similar-stages/) in March 3022, so it is not a last minute idea. There was more, and in light of the Tourism settings in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the idea started to form to have a Muslim solution (I meant Arabic) that industry is exploding to a larger degree whilst they are all pushing American solutions which are not 100% covering Islamic rules and ideas. That should stop and I saw an opening for the UAE and Saudi Arabia to get one solution in the field that would fuel both nations, optionally Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan and a few other places. So whilst Microsoft had this inflated idea with “CBA will work with Microsoft to drive greater customer benefits through wider adoption of generative AI (Gen AI) and ongoing cyber security initiatives” I saw this idea 4 years earlier whilst not using AI, because it would be decades before we are there.

Just thinking out loud. Have a great day today

From a deceptive mind

Yup, that’s me. I saw an article and the sneaky mind went to work. All because some words gave me ample reasons to do so. But lets start at the beginning. It all started with a story in the Microsoft Source Australia (at https://news.microsoft.com/source/asia/features/how-commonwealth-bank-and-microsoft-are-reimagining-the-future-of-customer-service/) where we see ‘How Commonwealth Bank and Microsoft are reimagining the future of customer service’ really? Reimagining? I get that Microsoft sees a blanket of opportunity, because as I see it, on a near global scale Technical Support and Customer Care will take dives and the need of clear quality is to be found nearly everywhere. But here is the kink in this cable. There already is a supplier. It is called NICE, an Israeli cloud supplier. I saw several options for Saudi Arabia and the UAE. I wrote about it in the story ‘Dominoes’ on December 4th 2023 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/12/04/dominoes/). I didn’t give the entire setting, but they were here first as such the solution ‘reimagined’ is not seen by me here.

So when I saw “Martin Lindsay had a bold vision to reimagine the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s contact center architecture using an approach that did not yet exist. As Executive General Manager of Customer Service Direct at the banking group, Lindsay set out to bring together multiple legacy systems supporting voice, messaging and digital interactions into a single, AI-powered omni-channel platform. The goal was to create a more intuitive, conversational experience for customers, while supporting frontline teams with better tools to serve them.” I had to giggle, because that is basically what the NICE CX One platform does and in several other ways. As such is this an attempt to plagiarise an already excellent idea, or are these people making sure that the “The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) serves approximately 17 million retail, business, and institutional customers across the country, representing nearly two-thirds of the Australian population. Of this total, the bank has over 1 million business customers and 8.3 million digitally active users.” (Source: Oogly Googly Google) fall straight via Microsoft into the Cloud Act capturing settings of the United States of America? Yes, people seem to forget is trivialize that cloud act and someone needs to take a longer look at this. For example an optional pretentious Martin Lindsay who had his ideas close to 5 years after NICE did. Nice started in 1986 as Neptune Intelligence Computer Engineering and that’s evolved into the setting we see now. As such what is the setting of imagination at Microsoft? (optionally at the CBA too). And as I see it, it is an Israeli company, but NiCE is an American technology company specializing in customer relations management software (NiCE CXone), artificial intelligence, and digital and workforce engagement management. OK, as I see it the cloud act is not avoided, but the fact that some (read: Microsoft Source Australia) might want to peer their sugar coated story. So when we get to “The catalyst came in early 2024, when Lindsay partnered with leaders from Microsoft to co‑engineer the solution. The timing was driven by a rapid shift in customer expectations for instant, always-on support, while the bank’s existing virtual chatbot was being wound down.” One might have a Conspiracy Theorist mind (that would be me) seeing that I saw this a year before him, that he had an idea to take the idea from NiCE and give it a swirl and optionally he saw Microsoft as a partner in alleged crime. Alleged, because I have no idea how this went, but as we look at Nice (at www.nice.com) you can see how evolved that idea already is and as such why reinvent the wheel? I have my doubts on this idea. Especially as we can see a massively evolved system, it seems to go even further than when I saw it in 2023 (which makes sense). So as I see that setting I also see “We wanted to work with Microsoft to shape their products and deliver a platform aligned to our future strategy. We knew that meant working with Microsoft as a co-creator in our vision from day one.” But I read it as “We needed a Microsoft tainted solution where I get the credit, the commission and I call Microsoft a ‘co-creator’ so that I can get my coins”, so am I pushing the conspiracy theory setting? I might be, but this is how business is done in this modern age. Because if NiCe was rejected, the story would be “We saw a solution that didn’t match with our vision, so we talked to Microsoft and see if they would help us out” and at this point you see the consultancy solution that NiCE could offer and was rejected for a much bigger bill.

Apart from that there is nothing. As I see it, the world will have a massive Technical support and Customer Care issue from 2027 onwards. As people are fired all over the place they can hire people with a telephone voice and a good setting towards data entry, both are essential in these fields. But what do I know, I have merely be set into the Technical Support world and Customer Care world since 1992. So I know a few things, which is also why I saw the essential needed setting of NiCE.

The rest of the story was too self adoring for me to adhere to, as people see that Customer Care has a low tolerance for failure, It is essentially humorous to see that Microsoft is clearly not using their own solution. Why? Perhaps Clippy objected? That Is a mere speculation on the matter and even in this case speculations tend to matter, because the idea is seemingly nice and merely seemingly because someone else saw that sight first and as I see it, the CBA never seemingly saw it as they went shopping at Microsoft. But what do I know?

Have a great day you all, time for some coffee.

And Grok ploughed on

That happens, but after yesterdays blog ‘The sound of war hammers’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/11/27/the-sound-of-war-hammers/) I got a little surprise. I could not have I want to planned it better.

You see, the article is about the AI bubble and a few other settings. So at times, I want Grok to take a look. No matter what you think, it tends to be a decent solution in DML and I reckon that Elon Musk with his 500,000 million (sounds more impressive then $500B) has sunk a pretty penny in this solution. I have seen a few shortcomings, but overall a decent solution. As I personally see it (for as far as I have seen it) that solution has a problem looking into and through multidimensional viewpoints. That is how I usually take my writing as I am overwhelmed at times with the amount of documentation I go through on a daily basis. As such I got a nice surprise yesterday.

So the story goes of with war hammers (a hidden stage there) then I go into the NPR article and I end up with the stage of tourism (the cost as the Oxford Economics report gives us) and I am still digging into that. But what does Grok give me?

The expert mode gives us:

The linked post directs to a blog by Lawrence van Rijn, a self-styled “Law Lord to be,” where he explores a narrative blending legal aspirations with speculative commentary, notably predicting FIFA might shift the 2026 World Cup from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia due to visa issues and a $435 fee delay, a theory unsupported by official FIFA statements but echoing concerns from a Travel.com article about U.S. tourism losses.

Van Rijn’s blog ties this speculation to an unusual metaphor of “war hammers” clashing on armor, symbolizing economic and technological tensions, particularly an AI bubble warned about in an NPR report (November 23, 2025), which cites MIT economist Daron Acemoglu’s research showing only 3% of people pay for AI services, challenging the trillion-dollar investments by tech giants like OpenAI.

His energy shortage concern aligns with a U.S. Energy Information Administration forecast of a 45% electricity price hike in Texas by 2026 due to data center demand, a trend overlooked by mainstream media focused on AI hype, suggesting a potential societal cost as power grids strain under unreported load increases.

Now, in the article I never mentioned FIFA, the 2026 World Cup or Saudi Arabia, so how did this program come to this? Check out the blog, none of those elements were mentioned there. As some tell us Grok is a generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) chatbot developed by xAI. So where is that AI program now? This is why I made mention in previous blogs that 2026 will be the year that the class actions will start. In my case, I do not care and my blog is not that important, even if it was, it was meant for actual readers (the flesh and blood kind) and that does not apply to Grok. I have seen a few other issues, but this yesterday and in light of the AI bubble story yesterday (17 hours ago) pushed this to the forefront. I could take ‘offense’ to the “self-styled “Law Lord to be”” but whatever and I have been accused of a lot worse by actual people too. And the quote “this speculation to an unusual metaphor of “war hammers”” shows that Grok didn’t see through my ruse either (making me somewhat proud), which is ego caressing at best, but I have an ego, I merely don’t let it out to often (it tends to get a little too frisky with details) and at present I see an idea that both the UAE and Saudi Arabia could use in their entertainment. There is an upgrade for Trojena (as I see it), there are a few settings for the Abu Dhabi Marina as well. All in a days work, but I need to content with data to see how that goes. And I tend to take my ideas into a sifter to get the best materials as fine as possible, but that was today, so there will be more coming soon enough.

But what do you do when an AI system bleeds information from other sources? Especially when that data is not validated or verified and both seem to be the case here. As I see it, there is every chance that some will direct these AI systems to give the wrong data so that these people can start class actions. I reckon that not too many people are considering this setting, especially those in harms way. And that is the setting that 2026 is likely to bring. And as I see it, there will be too many law firm of the ambulance chaser kind to ignore this setting. That is the effect that 8 figure class actions tend to bring and with the 8 figure number I am being optimistic. When I see what is possible there is every chance that any player in this field is looking at 9 or even 10 figure settlements, especially when it concerns medical data. And no matter what steps these firms make, there will be an ambulance chaser who sees a hidden opportunity. Even if there is a second tier option where a Cyber attack can launch the data into a turmoil, those legal minds will make a new setting where those AI firms never considered the implications that it could happen.

I am not being dramatic or overly doom speaking. I have seen enough greed all around me to see that this will happen. A mere three months ago we saw “The “Commonwealth Bank AI lawsuit” refers to a dispute where the Finance Sector Union (FSU) challenged CBA for misleading staff about job cuts related to an AI chatbot implementation. The bank initially made 45 call centre workers redundant but later reversed the decision, calling it a mistake after the union raised concerns at the Fair Work Commission. The case highlighted issues of transparency, worker support, and the handling of job displacement due to AI.” So at that point, how dangerous is the setting that any AI is trusted to any degree? And that is before some board of directors sets the term that these AI investments better pay off and that will cause people to do silly (read: stupid) things. A setting that is likely to happen as soon as next year.

And at this time, Grok is merely ploughing on and set the stage where someone will trust it to make life changing changes to their firm, or data and even if it is not Grok, there is all the chances that OpenAI will do that and that puts Microsoft in a peculiar stage of vulnerable.

Have a great day, time for some ice cream, it was 33 degrees today, so my living room is hot as hell, as such ice cream is my next stage of cooling myself.

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Tagged as 2026 World Cup, Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Marina, AI, AI Chatbot, Artificial Intelligence, CBA, ChatGPT, Commonwealth Bank, Elon Musk, FIFA, Finance Sector Union, FSU, Grok, LLM, Microsoft, OpenAI, Saudi Arabia, technology, Trojena, xAI

January 2, 2016 · 11:30

Costing in the key of life

Over the last decade, political parties have squandered the needs of their constituents. Liberals, conservatives and Labour alike in both the UK and Australia. I have seen the pressure as housing is no longer an options for many. It is a skewed approach to a solution that fit only the truly wealthy. It is a system that has been ignored, shovelled all over the place and no one has done anything serious to address it. How much longer can this go on?

Yesterday’s article in the Guardian by Robert Booth is only the tip of the iceberg that sank the good ship lollipop (at http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jan/01/london-flats-costing-up-to-1m-outsell-more-affordable-homes). The title ‘London flats costing up to £1m outsell more affordable homes‘ is on one side deceptive on the other side it is illustrative of several administrations that have not considered any solution, just a propagation of the Status Quo. The quote ‘sold more than twice as many two-bedroom apartments costing between £650,000 and £1m as cheaper homes priced at about £300,000‘ is partially deceptive. You see when you see the data ‘Sales of London homes banded by asking price per square foot’, we see the numbers, but what is missing is not ‘what is sold‘ but the metric ‘available places that people can afford‘, Even higher educated barristers admitted to the bar will not be able to show an annual income of £200,000, which means that even the highest educated are not in line for anything decent any day soon. In Australia the Commonwealth Bank of Australia is now marketing the alternative in the trend of ‘Use your spare room to help pay off your mortgage!‘, they voice it like ‘my new business‘, but in the end, it is a risky approach to either a mortgage that is higher than you bargained for or one that was outside your reach an they are voicing the ‘entrepreneurial’ edge to hide the risk. What if that person suddenly gets into a financial wash? What if the Granny involved dies? All elements that take weeks if not months to resolve and the mortgage is still due. In addition permits might be needed. Nothing of that is clearly shown. The entire housing market is in a dangerous place because the political parties have ‘conveniently’ ignored the lower branches of income and in all that the rent is also still rising whilst incomes are not moving forward. So we are in a place where London, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth are pricing their cities into non-sustainable situations and it has been going on for the better part of two decades. All these places have been trailing demand for over a decade by a decadent amount, whilst they should have been ahead of the curve for at least a decade.

When we look at the following quote in the Guardian “Campbell Robb, the chief executive of homelessness charity Shelter. “It is promising to see the government finally focusing on building more homes. But the only way to truly solve this housing crisis is for both the mayor and central government to finally prioritise building homes that Londoners on ordinary incomes can afford to rent or buy, instead of just higher earners.”“, question marks should be clearly placed, because ‘finally focusing on building more homes’ should have started in 2003 in both London and Sydney. Now, we have to accept that the city is no longer an option for many, yet when we look 4 minutes away from there we see the same trend of shortage. We are face with either not enough, or not affordable. A increasingly larger population in Sydney is now confronted that their income will at best support the rent of a mere studio apartment, meaning that the bulk must rely on 2 incomes to get anything above a one bedroom apartment, more than that, the current growth of rent means that any year that an annual increase of 3% is not met or exceeded, the living standard goes down on a quarterly base. These numbers might sound scary, but compared to London it is nowhere near as bad as it gets. The political parties have abandoned its population all for the need and premise of inviting wealth into the UK and Australia, whilst there is no evidence that these people are spending a great deal in those places, other than supporting and funding new unaffordable buildings. This goes far beyond these mere borders, we see a similar evolution in the Netherlands, where the issue is even more interesting as larger proportions of the Netherlands are facing a similar issue we see in London and Sydney. There is no ignoring the act that the Netherlands is only a fraction of the size of the UK (and an even more diminishable part of Australia), which of course drives prices up even faster. The Guardian article shows the most dangerous part at the very end with the quote “Since 2009, the fastest growing locations for new housing have been Barnet, Brent, Croydon, Newham and Wandsworth. In Croydon, the price of dozens of flats in the Coombe Cross development have increased by around a quarter, with one-bedroom flats rising £63,000 to £287,950“, now implying that the outer doughnut is no longer affordable, moreover, the fact that not more alerts are ringing all over Whitehall with an increase of 25% is even more unsettling. The average UK salary might be set at £26,500, but that implies that well over 50% of the UK is faced with a house price well over 1,000% of their income, making it never an option. That same trend is seen in Australia, where the median house price is now set at one million, setting the house price on average between 1,500% and 2,000% of their income, an issue that could have been avoided if the parties a decade ago had set clear paths in motion to battle this dangerous trend. Whilst both places are steering towards the New York unaffordability we are also faced with a situation that our values of life are in equal decrease, because as we move from nations that are no longer ‘working to live’, but nations that moved to ‘live to work’, our values will diminish faster and faster and it is all due to a path of greed and a path of flaccid and unreliable politicians. Labour UK 1997 – 2010, Labour AUS 2007 – 2013, in Australia partial fault is also with the Liberals as John Howard was sailing the good Ship Wallaby from 1996 – 2007. All parties that seemed to forget that not everyone can afford to live on a $100K+ income and we will be paying for their shortcomings for a long time to come.

I wonder if it ever gets properly solved without having to resort to ‘culling’ the population at large.