Google seems to want to take control of call centers with its AI assistant in duplex

To speak as a human, the company showed how the average person could use the technology to save time booking and whatnot. What was not discussed was the possibility that Duplex could have a use on the other side of the line, taking the place of call center employees and telemarketers.

A report from The Information suggests that Google could play another room apps for its human-sounding wizard and has already begun experimenting with ways to use Duplex to cope with roles currently filled by humans – a movement that could have ramifications for millions of people.

Quote a person familiar with Google's plans, The information indicates that the company is already in conversation with at least one potential customer who would like to integrate Duplex into its operations. This firm, a large, anonymous insurance company, would be interested in using the voice badistant to handle simple and simple calls to customer service.

If Google can find its way into the business of automated phone calls to business, make its way into a mbadive profit center. The research firm ResearchAndMarkets predicts that the customer call center market in the cloud will reach about $ 21 billion by 2022, up from $ 6.8 billion in 2017.

Good heard, the market will develop. & # 39; t the only large technology company that sees the opportunity to enter the call centers. Last year, Amazon started selling a version of its very popular Alexa voice badistant specifically designed to answer phone and text questions. Companies like IBM, Microsoft and Cisco are already in the door of this business, according to The Information.

While there may be significant profits waiting for these companies as conquered call centers, they also come with cost: humans will inevitably be jostled for jobs. Most companies are already outsourcing work in countries where they can pay paltry wages to reduce customer service costs, and AI would probably reduce those costs even more. This would be devastating for a nation like the Philippines, which has 1.2 million call center workers according to the Wall Street Journal .

Historically, one of the biggest obstacles to eliminating the human aspect of customer call interactions is the fact that the AI ​​is a bit subject to treatment. A poll conducted in 2015 by The Conversation revealed that the vast majority of respondents (90%) are addressing customer service in the hope of talking with a human. About eight in ten said they accelerated the automated part with the intention of talking to a person, and only 10% said they were satisfied with so-called "interactive voice response systems."

Google Duplex can solve this problem by making automated interactions less robotic and more realistic. Google seduced people with its Duplex demo that included the AI ​​wizard inserting "um" and "uh" sounds to make the conversation more fluid.

This can also have a completely opposite effect on people. Some people have found the scary Duplex demo as hell and worried about the ethical concerns of AI seeming to basically pretend people by claiming to be human. Backlash has finally made Google promise that Duplex will tell people that they're talking with AI, but the company still has a way to fix it to relieve everyone's worries.

This seems to be a clash for Google's efforts. call center activity, as well. According to The Information, "ethical concerns" overshadowed Google's demonstration of Duplex technology, and the company interested in the wizard held up the proposed project.

[The Information]