For three years, Kartikeya Kumar hesitated before picking up the phone, each time dreading another difficult conversation with an exasperated American customer. Like thousands of Indian call center agents, he fought to erase what a colleague called “Indianisms” from his accent. He practiced imitating dialogue from Marvel films and singing Metallica or Pink Floyd at the top of his lungs. But it was ultimately artificial intelligence that provided the solution.
In 2023, his employer, the French outsourcing giant Teleperformance, deployed in its center in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of New Delhi, AI software capable of modifying Kumar’s accent in real time – and that of at least 42,000 other Indian agents – to make it more understandable to American clients. “Now the customer doesn’t even know where I’m calling from. If it makes him happy, it makes me happy too”confides Kumar to the Washington Post.
His testimony illustrates how generative AI, boosted by the rise of ChatGPT, is profoundly transforming the Indian outsourced services sector. A phenomenon scrutinized by those who believe that technology will complement, and not replace, human work. Sharath Narayana, co-founder of the Californian start-up Sanas, which designed this tool, says that AI has even helped create thousands of jobs in India.
A country that more than a decade ago lost its title as the world’s largest call center to the Philippines, in part because of accent concerns. “We do not see AI as a threat to jobs, but as a way to delegate simple tasks to automation, so that agents can focus on more complex missions»explains MV Prasanth, director of operations at Teleperformance in India.
Accent “translated” or erased?
However, the use of this software is not unanimous. For some, this is “digital whitewashing” – a term the industry prefers to replace with the more neutral “accent translation”. To defend this new technology, companies are highlighting concrete results: more satisfied customers, less stressed agents, faster calls.
However, many remain skeptical. While automation offers short-term benefits to workers, it could ultimately eliminate many more jobs than it creates. The quality of conversations is already monitored by AI systems, which analyze all calls for compliance and tone – a task once reserved for a few humans. “AI is going to crush entry-level white-collar hiring in the next two or three years, and it’s going to happen faster than people imagine.”predicts Mark Serdar, expert on the global labor market.
To understand the impact of AI on work, just look at India: the business process outsourcing (or business process outsourcingBPO in English) weighs 280 billion dollars (approximately 244 billion euros) and employs around 3 million people, who provide customer support, software development, accounting or marketing for giants like Verizon, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Walmart, HSBC or Shell.
Chatbots and other “virtual agents” already handle basic tasks like resetting passwords or updating balances. AI writes code, translates emails, welcomes patients, analyzes credit or insurance applications. Human jobs are also evolving: AI “co-pilots” assist agents in real time, offering them responses or scripts. In some companies, robots even take calls.
And the trend is only going to accelerate: according to K Krithivasan, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services, the need for human call centers could become minimal within a year. The Brookings Institution estimates that 86% of customer service tasks have a “high automation potential”. More than a quarter of jobs in India are “highly exposed” to AI, even concludes the IMF.
