India: CEO replaces 90% of support staff with AI

A CEO in India has announced he has replaced 90% of his company’s support staff with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Meanwhile, the use of the technology for commentaries at Wimbledon has caused a mild ruckus.

Response and resolution times of customer queries had drastically improved as a result of implementing the technology, Suumit Shah, founder of Dukaan, said on Twitter.

Shah added that laying off staff had been a tough but necessary decision, stating: “Given the state of economy, start-ups are prioritising profitability over striving to become unicorns, and so are we,” he wrote.

He added that the firm was hiring for multiple roles.

In March, Goldman Sachs published a report showing that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs. In India, several firms are investing into AI to develop products, triggering fears over job losses.

In the UK, consultation on a government white paper on AI regulation, which is likely to be “pro-innovation”, closed late last month. The results are currently being analysed. The government’s ambition is for the UK to become an “AI superpower” according to science and technology secretary Michelle Donelan in her ministerial foreword to the white paper. She added that “the development and deployment of AI can also present ethical challenges which do not always have clear answers”.

On the risk of job losses, Dr Ventsislav Ivanov, AI expert and lecturer at Oxford Business College, told Personnel Today there was more likely to be a realignment than mass redundancies. He said: “The invention of mechanised looms in the industrial revolution may have resulted in the loss of jobs among handweavers, but it created new positions for people to work the machines.

“AI will cause a similar revolution in the modern workplace, and encourage a shift from workers performing repetitive tasks themselves to staff using AI to do it for them.

Ivanov added: “Anyone who has tried ChatGPT themselves will quickly realise that getting good results requires phrasing your requests clearly, specifically and unambiguously.

“Like the mechanised looms of yesteryear, AI is a tool – no more, no less. Workers who learn how to use this modern tool will find themselves in great demand.”

AI commentary at Wimbledon

Meanwhile, at this year’s Wimbledon tennis tournament, the use of AI to provide commentary was strongly criticised by former player Annabel Croft, who warned that if the technology was rolled out in all sectors it would “kill humanity”.

She told the BBC: “Listening to that, it was very stiff. It was emotionless, no feelings at all. Whoever is taking the decision to put a robot on to commentary and, of course, into the wider context of all jobs in life, this is going to kill humanity. I mean, what is going on? I think it’s an insult to my profession that you can put a robot into that place.

“A robot has no feelings – but that’s probably going to be built in next. I feel like we all need to throw our phones in the river and stop our brains being overtaken by AI.”

She added: “I really hope somebody can stop it.”

The technology was implemented at Wimbledon by IBM UK, with the aim of providing commentary to matches that currently did not receive any, such as junior and wheelchair matches. Kevin Farrar, head of sports partnerships at IBM UK, said the goal was not to replace presenters but give equal commentary to all matches. He added that the biggest challenge so far when producing the highlight reels had been pronouncing the players’ names.

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