There's been a number of articles coming out the last couple of months about the fear sorrounding the potential slow down, if not the tragic demise of the Business Process Outsourcing industry in the Philippines because of Artificial Intelligence. The concern around artificial intelligence technology replacing human workforce specifically in the BPO industry's been around for more than two decades. We haven't really seen much impact to the still growing industry today, but do we really know for sure that further development will not lead to job loss?
I found this article written for Philippine Star (Business) to be most interesting. The title itself seems very reassuring "AI will not doom Philippines' call centers — BPO expert". The next few paragraphs are quoted from the newspaper article.
Derek Gallimore, founder of the outsourcing advisory firm Outsource Accelerator, said that people predicting the imminent demise of the local call center industry are ignoring the fundamental facts and context of the matter. Outsourcing will not see a slowdown, he said, but will face a brighter future and stronger growth potential than ever.
"People may not realize it, but this isn't the first time that the Philippine labor market faced a formidable rival intelligence and prevailed," Gallimore said.
"When the Philippines entered the call center industry, India was the dominant player," he continued. "Yet the Philippine call center scene grew exponentially and surpassed India's within five short years."
Gallimore pointed to the element of customer care as the Philippines' decisive edge over its Indian call center counterparts. He also pointed to this element as the one thing that even sophisticated AI systems cannot automate.
"If it was so easy to systemize that intuitive level of service, India would have copied the Philippine style and neutralized that advantage years ago," added the outsourcing expert. "You can't tell me that coders armed with machine learning are going to replicate and surpass what the mighty India could not."
Today's enterprise-level call center AIs are said to have the capability to handle customer calls faster and with less errors than their human counterparts. However, users and developers of customer service AI systems admit that these platforms have yet to reach a level of "sentience" that allows for the kind of critical thinking that's essential in resolving complex issues.
The article is not at all incorrect, and the BPO expert seems to know what he is talking about when it comes to the edge of the Philippine workforce against other competing countries like India. He seemed to have also done research to know that the technology is not yet ready to compete with human. The expert also does well in terms of reassuring the people in the industry he cares deeply about.
However, there are a few things that makes me concern about the article.
- For one it looks only at one side of the story. It had no mention of how much volume of calls, chat, and emails are already being peeled off from having to go to a human contact center representatives, with the application of the current technology that hasn't reach a level of "sentience".
- There was no coder whose view was taken about how far the technology is from being ready.
- The only expert source, is hardly an expert in Artificial Technology, and therefore not credible make such statements as the title "AI will not doom Philippines' call centers — BPO expert".
- The tittle is incomplete of misleading. It could have been "AI will not doom Philippines' call centers in the Next 10 Years". By keeping the tittle as is, it is likely to give a false sense of security to people in the industry instead of getting themselves prepared for upskilling themselves.
I have spent many years in the Business Process Industry, and have great love and gratitude towards the many rewards I received from working in contact centers. I don't mean to spread unnecessary fear, in fact I mean to give assurances. I believe we still have a few years, and what that gives us is an opportunity to move out of roles that involves very simple transactions and upskill ourselves to higher tiered roles. Since 2006 when I became a mid-level manager, I have feared the robots replacing people in the contact center industry. I've led several projects aimed at peeling volumes off assisted by technology since 2008. From early 2017, I've been exposed to my last organization's efforts around AI. I will not have you take my word for it, do some research yourself. Star with doing some search engine searches in these format:
- (BPO Company Name) + (Artificial Intelligence)
- (BPO Company Name) + (Blockchain)
- (BPO Company Name) + (Machine Learning)
You are likely to find that your current and past organizations are engaged with developing their technology for a chance to continue being in the competition. You too should be doing the same; upskill yourself.