GitHub and go! Multi-agent GPT Copilots are now in the hands of ANZ engineers
Nicky Darwin discusses how ANZ was able to get their engineers the latest tools so quickly.
As we move into another ‘golden age’ of software engineering thanks to GenAI, what matters right now is getting the best tools into the hands of engineers as soon as possible.
On the 1st of February this year ANZ announced to our Architecture and Engineering (A+E) teams that we’d connected Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 3.5 and OpenAI’s o1 and o3 models into our GitHub Copilot instance.
This is just 90 days since GitHub announced the intent to make these models available, and just a few weeks since they were released. To follow this up, a week later the team also turned on Gemini Flash 2.0 as another code editing LLM within GitHub Copilot.
When my friends and peers in the industry heard about this, they all asked me the same question: ‘How did you manage to do that so quickly in such a big organisation (that also happens to be a bank)?’
I’ve had a few weeks to ponder this and have narrowed it down to three reasons: leadership, partnerships, and culture. They’re all as important as each other and are interdependent. I explain them separately below...
Inspiring leadership
This might seem obvious but there is more to it than meets the eye. The first component of inspiring leadership is having the right mindset.
ANZ’s senior technology leaders have an explicit understanding of what’s required from them to meet the bank’s objectives - so their vision is clear. They also have an innovative mindset, so their vision is a compelling one.
If you’re trying to move quickly on ambitious business critical tasks and need to convince executive teams, a board of directors and over 6,000 engineers working all around the world to adopt new work practices, a clear and compelling vision is essential.
This innovative mindset lends itself to a willingness to experiment. ANZ has been trialing GitHub Copilot in a constrained environment for a while now, and it didn’t take long for engineers to take it up and the proof of concept to start showing positive results. For example, in December 2024 seven percent of all new code written was from the acceptance of an AI suggestion. From what we’ve seen since, this number is increasing month on month (hopefully we’re not all experiencing a comparative decline in remembering syntax!)
With runs on the board from the controlled pilot and a clear and compelling vision of how A+E could help ANZ build the ‘bank of the future,’ it became relatively straightforward identifying and getting the right people, and partners, together to discuss the Co-Pilot roll out.
Talking constructively about the project with the right people was a crucial step as everyone associated with the bank will sooner or later be touched by the results of our work (both employees and millions of customers).
Because the foundations were solid, the discussions were able to move quickly to what was needed for the roll-out to succeed in a pragmatic and sensible way. The necessary financial investment from the business soon followed.
Powerful partnerships
GitHub has a lot of customers and is used by many companies. ANZ began using GitHub in around 2017 and in the last three years or so the relationship has become more strategic and evolved beyond the usual ‘customer > vendor’ style transactional relationships that are the norm.
A genuine partnership involves both parties being open and honest with each other and giving a little on both sides. There have been some rough seas on the journey, but by being transparent and committing to work through it together, ANZ’s partnership with GitHub has matured. So much so that it has allowed us to increase our speed of adoption and reduce the time required to extract maximum value from the software.
As a partner we sometime get access to Beta versions of product updates and new features. Early access gives us time to plan and prepare for the release and to identify how to best use the product for maximum value.
Beta testing also involves making suggestions on possible product improvements. While these suggestions aren’t always adopted, the tester has an active voice in the industry and can contribute to the direction of innovation.
As a vendor partner we often get advance briefings and access to special events. As many people from the company are invited, this can help to remove some of the internal barriers to adopting new features.
Taken together, our partnership with GitHub has played an important role in enabling us to implement the latest instances of GenAI within Copilot quicker than what might have been possible under other circumstances.
A curious culture
I’ve been with ANZ for nine months now (as of February 2025). Not a long time considering the bank has been around for over 180 years, but definitely long enough to pick up on the culture in ANZ’s Engineering Platforms team and to suss out how they go about doing things.
I mentioned the innovative mindset of senior technology leadership earlier. This is important to have - especially as we’ve set the bar so high for ourselves and the bank - but if the engineers don’t have the same mindset you end up with an innovation-stasis.
I’d have to say that most of the engineers at ANZ are on board with the direction of senior leadership and are eagerly pitching in to help with ‘the bank we’re building.’ I put this down to one common trait that I picked up very early on. Inquisitiveness.
I’ve witnessed engineer inquisitiveness over and over again in different teams, different locations and different circumstances. There is an openness to try new things and to learn that is very inspiring. There isn’t a fear of making mistakes, as the road to delivering great customer outcomes is filled with trial and error.
I feel energised being part of such a forward-thinking environment and believe this is why Copilot was embraced so well in the initial controlled pilot. It’s also why we’ve been able to move ahead with the implementation quickly.
The future
Cutting code is what most engineers love doing. I fondly remember being in the flow state writing code and thinking to myself ‘it doesn't get any better than this!’
We want all our engineers to be in this state for as long as possible as we’ve got big plans for A+E and our millions of customers. Not to mention a healthy backlog we can’t wait to get our teeth stuck into.
The GitHub Copilot trial has shown us that using it responsibly with humans in the mix and ultimate engineer accountability can help us reach our goals by:
Reducing our risk posture
Improving code quality by enforcing standards and automating corrections through tooling
Helping us be more offensive in production by removing vulnerabilities we don't need to remediate afterwards.
I’m really looking forward to being part of this next 'golden age’ of engineering with A+E delivering even more for the bank and customers by putting the best tools into the hands of our engineers quickly and safely.
Nicky is ANZ’s Head of Engineering and Platforms. She is an experienced transformation leader within the banking and finance space who specialises in front office and data technology.
Nicky is experienced in leading from concept to delivery large transformation projects, regulatory reform and system integration.
She is skilled in managing multimillion dollar budgets and large scale cross regional resourcing.
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