How Will AI Impact Call Center Jobs in India? (msn.com) 36
How AI will reshape the future of work? The Washington Post looks at India's $280 billion call-center and "business process outsourcing" industry, which employs over 3 million people.
2023 saw the arrival of a real-time "accent-altering software" — now used by at least 42,000 call center agents: Those who use the software are engaging in "digital whitewashing," critics say, which helps explain why the industry prefers the term "accent translation" over "accent neutralization." But companies say it's delivering results: happier customers, satisfied agents, faster calls.
Many are not convinced. Whatever short-term gains automation may offer to workers, they say, it will ultimately eliminate far more jobs than it creates. They point to the quality assurance process: When callers hear, "this call may be monitored," that now usually refers to an AI system, not a human [which now can review all calls for compliance and tone]... "AI is going to crush entry-level white-collar hiring over the next 24 to 36 months," said Mark Serdar, who has spent his career helping Fortune 500 companies expand their global workforce. "And it's happening faster than most people realize...." Already, chatbots, or "virtual agents," are handling basic tasks like password resets or balance updates. AI systems are writing code, translating emails, onboarding patients, and analyzing applications for credit cards, mortgages and insurance. The human jobs are changing, too. AI "co-pilots" are providing call center agents with instant answers and suggested scripts. At some companies, bots have started handling the calls.
There is no shortage of ominous predictions about the implications for India's labor force. Within a year, there will only be a "minimal" need for call centers, K Krithivasan, CEO of Indian IT company Tata Consultancy Services, recently told the Financial Times. The Brookings Institution found 86 percent of customer service tasks have "high automation potential." More than a quarter of jobs in India have "high exposure" to AI, the International Monetary Fund has warned. "There is a rapid wave coming," said Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam, a leading Indian AI firm, which recently helped a major insurance provider make 40 million automated phone calls informing enrollees that their insurance program was expiring. He said corporate clients are all asking him to help reduce headcount...
While AI may be phasing out certain jobs, its defenders say it is also creating different kinds of opportunities. Teleperformance, along with hundreds of other companies, has hired thousands of data annotators in India — many of them women in small towns and rural areas — to label training images and videos for AI systems. Prompt engineers, data scientists, AI trainers and speech scientists are all newly in demand... At some firms, those who previously worked in quality assurance have transitioned to performance coaching, said [Sharath Narayana, co-founder of AI speech tools company Sanas], whose previous firm, Observe.ai, also built QA software. Still, he admits, 10 to 20 percent of workers he observed "could not upskill at all" and were probably let go.
Even the most hopeful admit that workers who can't adapt will fall behind. "It's like the industrial revolution," said Prithvijit Roy, Accenture's former lead for its Global AI Hub. "Some will suffer."
The article also notes that while Indian universities produce over a million engineering graduates each year, "placement rates are falling at leading IT firms; salaries have stagnated."
2023 saw the arrival of a real-time "accent-altering software" — now used by at least 42,000 call center agents: Those who use the software are engaging in "digital whitewashing," critics say, which helps explain why the industry prefers the term "accent translation" over "accent neutralization." But companies say it's delivering results: happier customers, satisfied agents, faster calls.
Many are not convinced. Whatever short-term gains automation may offer to workers, they say, it will ultimately eliminate far more jobs than it creates. They point to the quality assurance process: When callers hear, "this call may be monitored," that now usually refers to an AI system, not a human [which now can review all calls for compliance and tone]... "AI is going to crush entry-level white-collar hiring over the next 24 to 36 months," said Mark Serdar, who has spent his career helping Fortune 500 companies expand their global workforce. "And it's happening faster than most people realize...." Already, chatbots, or "virtual agents," are handling basic tasks like password resets or balance updates. AI systems are writing code, translating emails, onboarding patients, and analyzing applications for credit cards, mortgages and insurance. The human jobs are changing, too. AI "co-pilots" are providing call center agents with instant answers and suggested scripts. At some companies, bots have started handling the calls.
There is no shortage of ominous predictions about the implications for India's labor force. Within a year, there will only be a "minimal" need for call centers, K Krithivasan, CEO of Indian IT company Tata Consultancy Services, recently told the Financial Times. The Brookings Institution found 86 percent of customer service tasks have "high automation potential." More than a quarter of jobs in India have "high exposure" to AI, the International Monetary Fund has warned. "There is a rapid wave coming," said Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam, a leading Indian AI firm, which recently helped a major insurance provider make 40 million automated phone calls informing enrollees that their insurance program was expiring. He said corporate clients are all asking him to help reduce headcount...
While AI may be phasing out certain jobs, its defenders say it is also creating different kinds of opportunities. Teleperformance, along with hundreds of other companies, has hired thousands of data annotators in India — many of them women in small towns and rural areas — to label training images and videos for AI systems. Prompt engineers, data scientists, AI trainers and speech scientists are all newly in demand... At some firms, those who previously worked in quality assurance have transitioned to performance coaching, said [Sharath Narayana, co-founder of AI speech tools company Sanas], whose previous firm, Observe.ai, also built QA software. Still, he admits, 10 to 20 percent of workers he observed "could not upskill at all" and were probably let go.
Even the most hopeful admit that workers who can't adapt will fall behind. "It's like the industrial revolution," said Prithvijit Roy, Accenture's former lead for its Global AI Hub. "Some will suffer."
The article also notes that while Indian universities produce over a million engineering graduates each year, "placement rates are falling at leading IT firms; salaries have stagnated."
hoping both fail (Score:1)
If we are super lucky, both AI and Indian call centers will fail.
My optimistic hope (Score:2)
Future AI will be trained on every detail of product use, troubleshooting and repair. Users will be able to get highly accurate answers, as if they were talking to the designer or maintenance expert.
The pessimistic reality
Tech support is seen as a cost to be minimized and companies will gladly replace awful Indian tech support workers with even worse AI
Re: My optimistic hope (Score:2)
It has to! All they do is read a script. (Score:3)
Not much to replace.
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For many such call centers, AI is already better.
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what about ai? (Score:3, Insightful)
Already, chatbots, or "virtual agents," are handling basic tasks like password resets
The Internet has been around for at least 40 years, at no point did you need AI to reset a fucking password. What a fucking joke these self-aggrandizing advertisements have become! It's like listening to the blowhards in power talk about how smart they are.
It's the third industrial revolution (Score:2)
However it's too much for brains that evolved on the Savannah to deal with. Sort of like how nobody fully understands the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire. Just how much power a billionaire wields by comparison...
And also we all know the shit is about to hit the fan so there's going to be a whole hell of a lot of coping going on rather than ac
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Re: what about ai? (Score:2)
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They don't mean a password reset on your laptop.
They're talk'n about resetting a forgotten password at a bank or other financial institution. You often need to call and undergo an interrogation to confirm your identity.
There's no reason an AI can't do that at least as well as a human.
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How often? Every bank website log in form I've ever used has a "Forgot Password" option which typically will reset it through the associated email address. Some go the next step of some sort of MFA (SMS, or through an app) to validate identity. I've never had to talk to someone. Admittedly I don't forget my passwords often as I use a password vault so maybe there is a threshold of issue frequency which necessitates a more rigorous authentication.
I certainly expect an AI could be as efficient and success
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Unsafe sanitation includes practices like open defecation and improper treatment of household wastewater. It is linked to the spread of diseases like cholera, dysentery, typhoid, intestinal worms, and polio.Unsafe sanitation exacerbates impaired growth and development in children and contributes to the problem of antimicrobial resistance.
. Can you guess where I got that definition?
Anyone know where the racism against Indians (Score:2, Interesting)
I saw you on mask reposting these same kind of racist comments and that guy is so far behind the curve his Earth is flat. If he's picking it up it's because somebody is signal boosting it and I'm not sure why. Maybe pakistan?
I've always been surprised Europe doesn't try to counteract the Russian propaganda hitting america.
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Where you say racism I say I don't care what race you are, I'd rather not have to compete with any more people for jobs, housing, space on the freeway, anything else that's geographically located in my region. It has zero to do with what race said immigrants are. I don't want the competition for the resources we have.
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Btw .. what do you mean "you saw me on mask" .. I don't even know what that is. I'm only mainly active on slashdot, I try other social media sites but I don't think I posted about this there. And nobody's paying me. I mean, I wish they would though. Would gladly post any BS for a fee.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Always funny to watch people spread racist talking points and pretend they aren't right wing extremists. God I hope you're getting paid for this. It would be sad if you were doing it for free. That's some fine sealioning either way. Putin is proud and thanks you for your service.
Anyway anyone know why all these racists are go
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First off, I am against Musk's politics. I think he's overly judgmental, biased, and way too quick to lose empathy. I believe in making things like universal healthcare happen as a priority, whereas he doesn't. And in fact have been stating that. Slashdot wont let me search through comment my comment history .. but here's a few proofs:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
That said, I do like Musk's companies .. and I've been vocal about that. I d
Local connections (Score:2)
When you call the store three miles from you using a local number, you won't get routed to Vidhya who's sitting in a call center somewhere in India.
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Lots of local numbers route to large companies with call centers. It kills small local businesses.
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This was for Best Buy.
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When you call the store three miles from you using a local number, you won't get routed to Vidhya who's sitting in a call center somewhere in India.
Not true: I had exactly this happen to me this past week. FWIW, it was the local UPS store... and I got routed to India instead of the phone at the local store despite having called the local number.
Then not only did I have to navigate a phone tree that very nearly caused me to throw the phone across the room, but then (after hitting '0' so many times I lost count) got to speak to two lovely Indians, neither of whom -- as far as I could tell - had more than a very basic grasp of English. I say "as far as I
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Sounds like UPS needs the accent-fixing AI described in TFA.
AI is terrible (Score:3)
I just had a very frustrating experience trying to solve a simple problem with my Tesla insurance where it wanted the address where my car is garaged (this was an email from the insurance company).
I couldn't do this online but had to call.
The call was answered by an AI which went through a tedious process of irrelevant questions and in the end said it couldn't help me and I had to talk to a real person. Literally 6 hours on hold (several calls... I kept getting disconnected) and no human ever answered the call.
The AI could detect that I was getting frustrated (insightful) and it did apologize for the frustration but it still couldn't help.
I don't think this AI is very useful.
I also question the source of the original email. I've had this insurance for over 3 years and never had a problem but all of a sudden I get this request for my garage address along with a threat to not renew my policy. I wonder if Musk has installed his "Grok" AI at the insurance company and it's looking for trouble.
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...The call was answered by an AI which went through a tedious process of irrelevant questions and in the end said it couldn't help me and I had to talk to a real person. Literally 6 hours on hold (several calls... I kept getting disconnected) and no human ever answered the call. The AI could detect that I was getting frustrated (insightful) and it did apologize for the frustration but it still couldn't help...
I haven't had to deal with Tesla insurance, but with my regular carrier, alternating between "agent", "cancel policy" and various curse words gets a human on the line pretty quickly. Works with eBay too.
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Or maybe it's not AI per se that is terrible, but Tesla Insurance's implementation of AI. Trying to go cheap with any technology, will yield bad results.
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Tesla should just fix its website so people can change their address without using a phone.
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Well, that is what you get for copntinuing driving what is now a NAZI car. No compassion here.
You can still tell it's Indians on the phone (Score:2)
Accent whitewashing can only do so much. The real problem is the right rhythm, and also very often the choice of words and common phrases. I can usually tell if it's a whitewashed Indian within first 30 seconds. They just sound unnatural.
I guess no Indian accents anymore (Score:2)
Unless on purpose to hide the fact.
De-funding public education (Score:2)
Soon, everything that can be labelled, will be labelled and they will be out of a job. No, there will never be a maintenance crew. Online dictionaries have the same misspelt words they had 20 years ago: Nothing has been repaired or replaced.
George Orwell was accidentally insightful: AI writes the books and the songs, while humans mow the grass and wash the dishes. Semi-skilled jobs are disappearing, creating another excuse for de-funding public education (in the USA).
Useless or useless? (Score:2)
Well, in the LLM case, you probably can at least understand the language. This is not a racial slur, BTW. There are tons of people from India that speak good English. But the ones hired for call-centers are usually those that cannot do anything else.