The world’s largest call center uses AI to ‘neutralize the pronunciation’, which makes the staff less Indian

Teleperformance se, the world’s largest call center operator, deploying artificial intelligence in its centers in India, ‘softening’ the accents of English -speaking Indian employees, according to one Bloomberg Report. The company says it will make them more ‘understandable’.

In particular, Teleperformance provides customer aid to major companies such as Samsung, bytedance and Tiktok.

According to the report, technology is called accent translation and it is done in association with background noise. The company’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Thomas McKenbrock said in an interview that it is difficult to understand the pronunciation of an Indian agent.

He said that the technology “can neutralize the pronunciation of the Indian speaker with zero delay,” “creates more intimacy, increases the satisfaction of the customer, and reduces the average handling time: it is a win for both sides.”

Technology was developed by a US startup Sanas. This year, earlier this year, the teleperforms invested $ 13 million in Sanas to promote AI participation. This year is committed to investing about $ 104 million in such partnership.

While new technology, which reduces background noise and improves accents, can be considered a support for agents, it also takes risks for countries such as India and the Philippines, who have created a leading market positions in the field due to their large number of English speakers. These new equipment can reduce the authenticity of the cultural identity and interaction of the workers.

According to Sanas’s website, it developed technology to “reduce pronunciation-based discrimination”.

It is currently available for Indian and Filipino accents, but it will soon be available for other areas including Latin America, where there are many activists in telephorms that support US-based customers.

McKenbrock said that AI is omnipresent, but the human element is ‘incredibly important’. He said that Teleperformance AI is also making a push to provide services to technical giants for the manufacture of AI model.

“Whether it is Openai, or an AI model in the world, it requires human support for training,” he said. This includes making, testing and labeling data.