Work in a call centre? Your firm could save $80 billion by replacing you
Acknowledging the massive costs of human call centres, companies are looking for ways of replacing them with AI tools
According to a recent survey published by Gartner, by 2026 the call centre industry could save up to $80 billion by replacing humans with AI chatbots. Moreover, the company estimates that, by 2026, roughly ten percent of agent interactions will be performed by conversational AI – a stark contrast to only 1.6% today.
Advancements in AI chatbot natural language processing and text-to-speech models have made recent customer support AIs more probable to replace real life customer support staff. Companies are highly incentivised to make the leap, because customer support staff make one of the largest costs for any company.
Gartner’s research also reveals that currently there are approximately 17 million contact centres around the world, and together they will spend $2 billion in total on AI software by the end of this year.
However, it needs to be said that the field is still in its infancy as after a couple of seconds into the conversation, the client can easily spot the difference between a real person and an AI assistant.
Daniel O’Connell, VP analyst at Gartner, noted that companies actually aren’t as greedy as they might seem – one of the main reasons behind company interest in AI powered tools is the shortage of staff willing to work at customer support.
