This is a #paidpartnership with Commonwealth Bank
Blair is the Chief Engineer of Generative AI at Commonwealth Bank, overseeing nine to ten teams building the AI platform that powers Australia’s largest bank and its millions of customers. Including me, a Dollar Mite since primary school.
His origin story is not what you would expect. He was a self-described hacker who grew up clicking through every system configuration setting he could find on his mum’s school computers after hours. That curiosity took him from building on GPT-2 before ChatGPT even existed, to the heart of one of Australia’s most important institutions.
In this episode we get into:
The litmus test he uses to spot bad AI use immediately
Why context matters more than prompting
What an AI platform actually is and why your company probably needs one
Why software engineers need to take more accountability for what they build
The single security mistake most people are still making
Why it is absolutely not too late to figure AI out for yourself
Practical, candid, and full of things you can action today.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
03:05 What Does a Chief Engineer of AI at a Bank Actually Do
06:02 How CBA Collaborates Across Hundreds of Engineering Teams
08:56 How to Keep Up With AI Tools Without Getting Overwhelmed
12:04 Why Tool Consistency Matters in Enterprise AI
14:56 Why Blair Shares His AI Insights Publicly
17:51 What Being a Hacker Really Means in Tech
20:50 How Blair Hudson Went From Startup AI to Commonwealth Bank
23:59 Why CBA Starts Every Sprint With a Real Customer Call
27:06 Why Over-Engineering Is Killing Your AI Projects
29:47 Where AI Is Actually Moving the Needle in Banking Right Now
32:15 Why the Year of the Agent Was Overhyped
34:41 How to Build AI Fast Without Cutting Corners on Safety
39:28 What Is an AI Platform and Why Does Your Company Need One
41:49 How CBA Handles Shadow AI and Tool Adoption at Scale
45:09 Why Context Is More Important Than Prompting
50:29 The Number One Security Mistake You Are Still Making
52:30 The Easiest Way to Start Using AI to Save Time Today
54:05 Why You Should Never Ship AI Output Without Reviewing It
55:38 Why It Is Not Too Late to Learn AI
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