Commonwealth Bank of Australia has struck a big blow in its bid to take on global big tech, leading a $US100 million ($134 million) funding round for leading artificial intelligence platform H20.ai and forming a partnership it says will help it release smarter products and make faster decisions than rivals.

H20.ai is one of the most highly rated AI platforms in Silicon Valley. As well as being a venture capital style investment for CBA, the platform will be used across the bank’s many systems, such as customer rewards, online retail, credit assessment and fraud detection, to let it deliver individually tailored offers and fintech-style services.