CIMB Niaga launches AI agents for Indonesian bank staff

CIMB Niaga, Google Cloud, and Artefact have launched AI agents to support Indonesian bank staff in delivering banking services to millions of customers.

The rollout centres on two systems developed by CIMB Niaga's AI Centre of Excellence and Artefact on Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform: one for relationship managers and another for contact centre teams. The software is designed to help staff give more relevant guidance based on customers' financial goals and life stages.

The launch marks a further step in CIMB Niaga's broader use of artificial intelligence in frontline banking operations, rather than limiting it to back-office automation. It also reflects how lenders in Southeast Asia are applying generative AI to customer-facing work while keeping tighter control over data sources and compliance requirements.

Two agents

The Relationship Manager AI Agent is designed for wealth and advisory staff who need to track market developments while managing a range of client needs. According to the companies, it brings together daily market sentiment and financial trends in a format that staff can use during client discussions.

The system is intended to help advisers connect external market conditions with individual customer milestones, such as buying a first home or planning for retirement. The goal is to move beyond generic recommendations by giving staff more context before consultations.

The Contact Centre AI Agent is designed for service teams handling live customer interactions. It works alongside staff during calls and other contact centre exchanges, surfacing procedural information and product details in real time.

By linking the system to the bank's internal knowledge base, CIMB Niaga aims to reduce the time employees spend manually searching for information. The companies added that the contact centre tool can identify patterns in customer interactions, which can then be used for staff training and service improvement.

Knowledge base

Both tools are supported by a centralised knowledge management system built by CIMB Niaga's AI Centre of Excellence and Artefact using Google Cloud data and database services. The repository is based on the bank's own verified internal data and records rather than public information sources.

That distinction matters in banking, where the accuracy of information and the traceability of advice are closely tied to risk controls. A semantic search feature allows staff to query internal policies and product documents in natural language and retrieve responses based on meaning rather than exact keyword matches.

The system is hosted in Google Cloud's Jakarta cloud region to meet local data residency and privacy requirements. For financial institutions operating in regulated markets, cloud location and the handling of customer information remain central issues in AI deployment.

CIMB Niaga is one of Indonesia's largest private lenders, with 11,657 employees on a consolidated basis, 394 branches and networks, 2,786 ATMs, and 707,256 electronic data capture, QR and eCommerce terminals across the country. That footprint means even narrowly targeted internal software changes can affect large numbers of staff and customers.

Industry pressure

Banks globally have been testing AI assistants in areas such as customer service, fraud monitoring, compliance and coding support. The challenge has been to make these systems useful in tightly regulated environments without allowing them to rely on incomplete or outdated information.

In Indonesia, lenders face additional pressure to improve digital service standards as customers move between branch, mobile and call centre channels. Tools that help staff quickly retrieve product rules, market information and internal guidance are increasingly seen as a practical use of AI, especially where institutions want a human employee to remain in control of the final interaction.

Billie Setiawan, Head of Data Analytics and AI at CIMB Niaga, said the project is intended to change how the bank supports customers over time.

"Together with Google Cloud and Artefact, we're reimagining the bank's role as a lifelong financial partner for Indonesians," Setiawan said. "By combining our banking capabilities with Google Cloud's enterprise AI and Artefact's technical consulting expertise, we're giving our teams the tools they need to better address each customer's unique goals and long-term aspirations. This collaboration is turning shared ideas into practical, trusted solutions that support our workforce, drive measurable ROI, and set a new standard for human-centric banking. This initiative is aligned with CIMB Niaga's purpose of 'Advancing Customers and Society,' as we continue to deliver solutions that create meaningful impact for our customers and the communities we serve."

Michael McGauran, President Director at Artefact, described how the system was built.

"As a Google Cloud partner with extensive experience supporting regulated industries in and beyond Indonesia, we have established a resilient data-to-AI foundation that will serve CIMB Niaga for years to come," McGauran said. "We engineered an automated, reusable pipeline that handles document ingestion and agentic workflows while maintaining peak system performance. By utilizing open Google Cloud technologies, we've created a bespoke yet interoperable solution that enables more high-value AI use cases to be scaled across the bank with accelerated development cycles, simpler integration, and unified data consistency."

Mark Micallef, Managing Director for Southeast Asia at Google Cloud, said banks needed a broader approach to AI adoption.

"AI transformation in banking isn't about adopting siloed, point solutions; it's about implementing a unified platform-first strategy that enables every employee to access role-specific tools and insights, at the exact moment they need them," Micallef said. "With Google Cloud's industry-leading platform services and the solution engineering expertise of partners like Artefact, CIMB Niaga is deploying proactive agentic assistance that turns vast internal knowledge into a practical advantage for its staff. This ensures that whether a customer is on their phone or at a bank branch, they receive a faster, more precise, and deeply human experience."