Artificial intelligence (AI) enterprise software such as those being aggressively pushed by Salesforce.com, Inc will one day result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs at call centers and customer service units worldwide, and that's just for starters.
After years downplaying or flat out denying AI will do away with a massive number of service jobs, business executives are reluctantly admitting this inconvenient truth no longer capable of being brushed aside. The latest C-suite boss to make this admission is Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat, who said recently AI plus digitalization will kill thousands of jobs at call centers around the world.
Especially hard hit by this ongoing shift to AI will be call centers in the Philippines (the world's leading call center hub), India and the United States.
Citigroup said it spends over $8 billion annually on technology but still employs masses of call center workers. It said its customer service personnel still provide invaluable services such as calming down irate customers or helping customers solve problems.
But people are a huge expense for Citigroup and are the resource most easily dealt with when a company makes a decision to maximize profit and shareholder value at the exclusion of everything else.
In 2017, Citigroup more than hinted at the possibility AI was coming -- and people were going. It said that better AI could reduce headcount at the bank by 30 percent.
More bad news for bank employees. John Cryan, former CEO at Deutsche Bank AG, last year said to expect a bonfire of bank sector jobs in the wake of Ai.
Analysts note with increasing alarm that bankers are dead set on eliminating most customer service reps by digitizing the processes they perform.
This terrifying future is personified by the "Duplex," software being developed by Alphabet Inc. (Google's parent firm). Duplex talks like a human and can carry on a reasonably human conversation with an unsuspecting real human at the other end of a phone.
When first demoed last year at the Google I/O developers' conference, Duplex was able to make a restaurant reservation and an appointment at a local hair salon without the persons on the other end being none the wiser.
Google has since taken Duplex mainstream by bundling it with an app called "Screening" that comes with its Pixel smartphone the company rolled-out in October 2018. The implication in this seemingly innocuous move is immense. If Google can plant Duplex in a smartphone, it can also do it at call center companies, albeit on a more massive scale.
Salesforce.com, Inc by far is the company best positioned to digitize the customer service process. Some analysts claim Salesforce has the best CRM software on the market today.
