Call centers could be surplus to requirements within a year, according to K Krithivasan, CEO and Managing Director of Indian IT company Tata Consultancy Services.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Krithivasan discussed the proliferation of generative AI (Gen AI) within the contact center sector and how this will impact human agents.
While he did concede that AI has not yet led to mass staff cuts, Krithivasan argues that it is only a matter of time before GenAI-powered chatbots reach a level of sophistication that they will almost entirely eliminate the need for incoming customer service calls.
“In an ideal phase, if you ask me, there should be very minimal incoming call centers having incoming calls at all,” he said.
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.
Krithivasan believes that bots will be able to achieve this via integration within a company’s customer transaction history – essentially completing the work currently being done by human agents.
And while the CEO does not think the technology is currently advanced enough to realize this vision, he suggests that it could be a reality sooner than people expect:
“That’s where we are going ... don’t think we are there today – maybe a year or so down the line.”
Interestingly, Krithivasan’s predictions could have the biggest impact in his company’s country of residence.
India is considered one of the largest employers of contact center staff in the world, with industry group Nasscom reporting that the country employs over five million people across the IT and business process outsourcing sector.
Indeed, TCS – an arm of Krithivasan’s own company that covers IT development– currently employs more than 600,000 workers.
But how accurate will Krithivasan’s predictions prove to be? And what are the other voices in the customer service and CX space saying about the impact of GenAI?
AI: Foe or Friend?
Despite the understandable concern around AI potentially replacing humans in the contact center, many significant voices have cautioned companies against placing all of their eggs in the AI basket.
Most notably, tech research specialist Gartner recently released a report suggesting that organizations that pursue digital-only solutions may actually end up in trouble with the law.