The world’s back office is looking to ride the AI wave, betting that a let-it-rip approach to the new technology will create enough new jobs to absorb displaced workers, reports Reuters.
India first emerged as an international hub for call centres in the 1990s. Buoyed by cheap labour and English proficiency, it grew into a US$283 billion industry, employing more than 6 million people and accounting for 7.5 percent of the country’s GDP.
Now AI-powered systems are transforming how companies provide IT services like technical support, customer care and data management, fuelled by AI startups offering to help companies lower costs and scale operations. Local firms like LimeChat, which told Reuters its developers and engineers have helped automate 5,000 jobs across India, promise companies that once you hire their AI agents, “you never have to hire again.”
For millions working in the industry, who have already seen hiring rates plummet in the last two years, such promises feel like a threat. But the Indian government is gambling that widespread adoption will work out in the long term.
Work “does not disappear due to technology,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a February speech. “Its nature changes and new types of jobs are created.”
[See more: These are the job sectors most at risk from AI]
Current and former customer-service workers told Reuters about the integration of AI into their jobs, ranging from tools that suggest responses to bots able to handle nearly all routine queries without human assistance. Despite layoffs, slowed hiring and growing job insecurity, one senior Indian official told Reuters the government believes AI will ultimately have little impact on overall employment.
Training centres once geared toward teaching IT skills and awarding certifications for tech jobs, are increasingly focused on AI training. Reuters noted one in a neighbourhood of Hyderabad, a central hub of India’s technology industry, was offering a nine-month course in AI data science and prompt engineering. A staffer told the news agency these are the skills sought after by recruiters.
Meeting demand for AI engineers and automation deployment could also allow India to transition into the world’s “AI factory” in the future, Pramod Bhasin, founder of the country’s first call centre, told Reuters.
It’s a bold gambit. If it pans out, India will serve as a model for how embracing AI can elevate a developing economy. But if the promise of efficiency doesn’t deliver new opportunities, the fates of millions of Indian workers will render it a cautionary tale.
