Generative AI could soon decimate the call center industry, says CEO
There could be "minimal" need for call centres within a year
By Rob Thubron
April 26, 2024 at 5:18 AM
It's no secret that certain types of jobs are more threatened by artificial intelligence than others. Call center workers fall into this category, and while we've already seen a few companies replace phone-based support staff with generative AI, there are warnings that the entire industry could be comprised mostly of chatbots in as soon as a year.
The grim prediction comes from K Krithivasan, head of Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The second-largest company in India by market cap, it has more than 616,000 employees worldwide.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Krithivasan said AI will result in a "minimal" need for call centers. The CEO added that while "we have not seen any job reduction" so far, that will change as multinational clients adopt generative AI. The technology is expected to have a massive impact on the customer help center industry, which, according to a Gartner report in 2022, employs about 17 million people.
"In an ideal phase, if you ask me, there should be very minimal incoming call centres having incoming calls at all," Krithivasan told the FT. "We are in a situation where the technology should be able to predict a call coming and then proactively address the customer's pain point."
The prospect of a chatbot being able to fulfil all of a customer's requests over the phone with ease might sound like a long way off, but Krithivasan believes they will be able to seamlessly replace humans in "maybe a year or so down the line."
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