Bank Records Show Australians AI Subscriptions Up Nearly 13-Fold

The letters AI on a laptop screen (top) next to the logo of the AI Chatbot application on a smartphone screen in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, on May 7, 2026. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty ImagesData from Westpac suggests the number of Australians opting to pay for an artificial intelligence “chatbot” has rocketed over the past three years.The number of the bank’s customers with subscriptions grew from around 11,000 a month in March 2023 to more than 150,000 a month in March 2026. Westpac said it had handled approximately one million payments for AI subscriptions over the past year.