World's largest call center using AI to 'neutralize' Indian employees' accents.
World's largest call center using AI to 'neutralize' Indian employees' accents
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| The world's biggest call center company is using AI to mask employees' accents. Credit: PeopleImages via Getty Images |
Teleperformance SE, the largest call center operator on the planet, has come up with a way to mask the fact it operates in India for customers calling for support with their latest iPhone or Galaxy device.
In a new report from Bloomberg, Teleperformance shared that it invested $13 million in Sanas, an AI startup. Sanas has created technology that focuses on "reducing accent-based discrimination." As Teleperformance puts it, the technology can "neutralize" accents.
SEE ALSO:Meta plans to launch standalone Meta AI app. OpenAI's Sam Altman fires back.
“When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard to hear, to understand,” Teleperformance Deputy Chief Executive Officer Thomas Mackenbrock told Bloomberg in an interview. Mackenbrock said that the AI technology can “neutralize the accent of the Indian speaker with zero latency."
Sanas' accent-neutralizing technology currently works on Indian and Filipino accents. The company says that it's working on deploying it for other accents, such as those found in Latin America.
The AI startup also provides a background noise removal feature in order to further mask any sort of ambient noise emanating from the call center employees' location that may give away where they are based.
Teleperformance said that it's also using AI tools for more common AI tasks, such as transcribing calls and coaching new employees. The company announced it would invest a further $104 million in AI during an investor call.
Topics Artificial Intelligence
Not sure what to think. While I do have trouble understanding an Indian accent, I have hearing loss due to working around jet engines. A clearer voice is helpful to me.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to know to whom I am speaking- an accent helps with that. So I have a split opinion here.
I've actually heard the tech in action. It's from Sanas. It softens the agent's accent enough that you can understand the agent better, but doesn't remove their accent fully. So, you will still be able to identify by their accent that the agent is from another country (India).
DeleteI don’t care they are from India. What i do care about is being able to understand them. How is that discrimination?
ReplyDeleteWho brought up discrimination?I guess I missed that.
DeleteSo what happens when the Indian Scammers get ahold of this technology???
ReplyDeleteScammed are all the same. You shouldn't fall for Indian scammers any more than American, German, or any other scammers.
DeleteCan we use this for US politicians? Asking for a friend.
ReplyDelete😂 how very anti-discriminatory!
ReplyDeleteLets make those indians sound more British!
I would think allowing people providing an audio service to become more understandable by the customers they are trying to assist would be a good thing - and surprisingly, people from Britain find British accents easier to understand than Indian accents. Who knew? I would also think that an Indian person trying to understand an Indian language spoken in a Geordie accent to be quite difficult to understand!
DeleteLol wouldn't it be cheaper for companies to outsource to UK anyway. So pleased my new biz broadband is UK company and UK English-speaking support backed by longer opening hours.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great point,Outsourcing to the UK can indeed be a cost-effective option for companies, especially considering the cultural and linguistic similarities. And yay for supporting UK businesses
DeleteThey are all snake oil salesmen and women a blight on society
ReplyDelete🤢🤮
ReplyDeleteYou’re a great man
DeleteBut how will we know to hang up immediately? This feels like a trick.
ReplyDeleteYou're right to be cautious. Scammers can be sneaky, and it's hard to know for sure
Deleteso indian microsoft scamers will sound more ameican now
ReplyDeleteSo how will we know they're from tech support now?
ReplyDeletethe dangerous and deadly rise of AI.
ReplyDeletethat sounds to be a very good use of AI it's not really the accent but it is more the understandability of the call center person which is sometimes rather hampered by the accent
ReplyDeleteAre businesses ashamed of using call centers outside of the US?? If such is the case, maybe DJTs tariffs would be better placed on said companies??
ReplyDeleteBusiness are weary of the complaints they receive from customers who are unable to understand thick, foreign acescents. Also, other countries are using this so there is no reason to call-out the US and Trump.
DeleteNo, they are not ashamed. They just want callers to actually understand what is being said to them.
Deleteno one wants to talk foreigners overseas and call centers need to be in the usa
DeleteAt this point just fire the Indian workers and inform the customer that the call is an AI generated agent, no need to implement deception into your business practices.
ReplyDeleteThis is NOT deception, it is a way of letting called always understand what is being said. The big complaint is not that the speaker is from India, the complaint is that very often callers can't understand a word they're saying.
DeleteMaybe moving customer service back to the United States would eliminate the problem?
ReplyDeleteWhen I hear an Indian accent on the phone, I hang up when they start with "Hullo Sir".
ReplyDeleteIf I talk with a raysist liberal accent, does it automatically translate into an Indian accent to them?
DeleteI don't mind Indian accents. I'm just glad to be talking to a real person who wants to help, and usually can.
ReplyDeleteWill not fool me, as soon as I hear the phrase "No Worries" I know I am communicating with the Sub Continent.
ReplyDeleteHide their accents, it won't fool me. They talk so fast I repeatedly ask them to repeat what they said.
DeleteThen I ask if they are US based. When they say no, I request a US based rep.
"No Problem Mon"
DeleteWon’t work. First question I ask besides how they are doing is where are they located. Plus AI won’t fool people
ReplyDeleteThe problem is there are so many scammers calling from India that no one trusts the random person who is honest.
ReplyDeleteNone are!
DeleteThey'll be sueing..you can bet the ranch on that!!
ReplyDeleteGreat…now the scammers can scam us better.
ReplyDeleteExactly what I think. When I ask a scammer what country they are calling from they always hang up.
DeleteThe help desk call centers of many very legitimate companies are run out of India, so not every caller with an Indian accent is trying to scam you. My biggest problem with them is most of them are terrible at their jobs, but because you can hire 5 of them for the cost of one US based employee, they are going to be in our lives for a long time.
DeleteI don't buy it. You will never make Bob Patel sound like Chad Smith of DesMoines, IA.
ReplyDeleteRoll it out to every call center that is contacted by US citizens and fully leverage AI to take the human out of the process.
ReplyDeleteFool
DeleteYes bc employing US citizens is foolish.
DeleteY'all please do the needful y'hear.
ReplyDeleteI talk to tech support so much being an IT guy, the phrase "have a good day ahead" has permanently entered my vernacular.
DeleteKindly do the needful is another banger of an Indian phrase
DeleteIt's rude as fuck in English.
DeleteWhy on earth do they even say that anyway?
DeleteDo they not even realize how sarcastic and passive aggressive it is?
Its the way english was spoken by britishers during the colonial era. Language moved on in England and America but it stayed in that old vernacular in India. Its like how the smiley face is considered passive aggressive now but boomers use it all the time.
DeleteThat's interesting, I had always assumed it was a quirk translating an Indian phrase into English
DeleteYup, people in India use many archaic phrases that went out of fashion a while ago because that's how the language is taught in schools. Also the schools aren't particular about good English instruction as it tends to be a third language for most people most of the time.
DeleteIt's a pretty common phenomenon in linguistics called Colonial Lag. You'll find this with Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese as well
Delete“Actually sir”
DeleteI here this in the dark hours of the night
DeleteWhat is wrong with the phrase?
DeleteNothing, just odd to hear from an American, but rather common from Indian people.
Deleteaccording to me
DeleteSorry to Bother You is becoming a reality.
ReplyDeleteI like that one, cos I can hang up.
DeleteYou can always hang up.
DeleteMan it's crazy that the movie had such a literal message at the end but no one actually watched it
DeleteWhich is a shame because it was also a great comedy
DeleteMate, I wouldn't be surprised at all.
ReplyDeleteThe last guy I spoke to had an accent all over the place.
Sounded like he was part Aussie, part Filo, part Indian.
And the phrasing was 100% Indian.
Would not have been surprised at all if there was a filter in place, especially given the time of the call none of the AUS "contact centers" would have been open.
Fair dinkum, now please do the needful.
DeleteReminds me of that episode (not from family guy but from Simpsons). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FHeLkdTuw-8&pp=ygUZU2ltcHNvbiBpbmRpYW5jYWxsIGNlbnRyZQ%3D%3D
ReplyDeleteKindly do the needful and revert, sirs
ReplyDeleteThanks, I know exactly what this is, and I absolutely hate it
Delete"Teleperformance"
ReplyDeleteAs always it's Teleperformance, which has its share of controversies.
This is such a dystopian reality.
ReplyDeleteI do have trouble understanding English Indian accent, but erasing their voice with an accent modifier like this is such a monstrous move.
It’s so they can fool people to think they’re getting a US based customer service experience.
DeleteHaving been on the customer end of both US and non Us based service there is definitely a gap and it’s not just accent
Worked with TP at my last company. Absolute shitshow of an operation, barely trained staff fucking up constantly. Friends of mine went over to India to train them and came back frustrated and exhausted. Terrible management, zero standards for hiring.
ReplyDelete"The company serves major clients including Apple, Samsung, and TikTok."
ReplyDeleteYeah ,no point, AI is coming for call centre jobs.
It will be cheaper to run AI then have a small team in-house to complicated problems.
“ai” handles 90% of the job already, and has been for a while too. it’s only the remaining 10% that is going to go away
DeleteYeah but that isn't even the biggest news, they also service UHC and like a half dozen ISPs in the US.
DeleteGood. Those jobs are dehumanizing torture anyway.
DeleteIt's most peoples income. Less real jobs more scammers come out of desperation
Delete💀
ReplyDeleteThe accent lets me gauge their comprehension of my language, if it’s thick I’ll try keep my words basic and enunciated
ReplyDeleteBetter just do that always now. And ffs ask them to restate your problem first before they start trying to solve the wrong thing because they didn't understand.
DeleteIronically, it's not the accent that bothers me. It's when they don't understand common words and default to script.
ReplyDeletePeople at tim hortons getting nervous
ReplyDeleteThey're using Indians to modify Indian accents?
ReplyDeleteIsn't that just called "language training"?
;p
I've experienced this already and it got someone I know fired for falling for a scam. They were using a Southern American voice, said he was calling from Helpdesk in Tennessee. When I got the call I asked him one simple question, how does he like his macaroni and cheese. Dude said the box kind and I knew he was phoney. They have the voice but don't know the culture. This have been a thing for about a month
ReplyDeleteComment deleted by user
ReplyDeleteYou are disposable. That's what this is for. When India gets too expensive they'll move to Africa. The customers won't notice.
DeleteI read this initially as Modi-fy, like make everyone sound more like PM Modi.
ReplyDeleteKrisp ai does it too
ReplyDeleteSo scammers can be more convincing. What could possibly go wrong.
ReplyDeleteI have absolute shit hearing plus tinnitus in both ears. This is wonderful news. I have trouble hearing what anyone is saying let alone anyone with an accent.
ReplyDeleteI always ask them if their grandmother knows what they do for a living. huh? You know, stealing money from old people, does she know you do that for a living?
ReplyDeleteThis raises concerns about authenticity and potential job impacts for agents.
ReplyDeleteWon't help - the "broken" english we get won't be better if it sounds Texan... And don't start me with an Oracle specialist i knew years ago from deepest Lousiana - a true wizard, but we had to communicate by email... ;-)
ReplyDeleteLol. Lmao, even.
ReplyDeleteThis made me laugh more than it should have
DeleteI’ve never heard an American speak so fast
ReplyDeletebro has never gone to NYC or Chicago
DeleteWhile also studying all the calls to inevitably replace them… probably.
ReplyDeleteEff them.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a good thing actually. I am somewhat hard of hearing and accents make it very hard for me to hear what someone is saying. I don't care that they have an accent or if they're from Hyderabad or Manila. I just want my tech problem fixed. And if this helps them become understood more? All the better.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has an accent. Even you have an accent.
DeleteHow is this oniony?
ReplyDeleteThat's just a short term fix as they train the AI with all those calls.
ReplyDeleteIt also trains people to accept the new tone/accent as normal as they start mixing in AI.
Knowing telepreformance it will not work very well.
ReplyDelete
DeleteWhy? I worked there and found their methods and training to be decent.
The pay was absolute trash and I was part of the "elite" there in the "hardest" campaign dealing with angry southern texans with no power. They paid $300 a month 🤣
But we were good, was proud of the other guys that "graduated" with me, even if we all lasted only 3-6 months (high turnover shit job)
The scammers are going to have a field day with this
ReplyDeleteKitboga too.
Deleteor or or corporations could just hire people that speak english as their first/primary language, but nobody wants to pay a livable wage anymore 🙃
ReplyDeleteeverything has to be outsourced these days, what about supporting local?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Deletei was agreeing with you.
DeleteI mean, many Indians learn English early on in school. It's just that Indian English has its own strong accent, like Irish or Scotch English. An Indian person who speaks English as their first/primary language will still have an Indian accent unless they studied it overseas.
DeleteBut your point is well-taken. This is a consequence of outsourcing.
"Scotch English"
DeleteTo be fair, it's true I'm pretty incomprehensible after a few whiskys
Nobody says Scotch fyi, Scottish world be more appropriate
DeleteSo just a way for them to outsource more jobs to India and get a way for them to eventually move it to AI. Great
ReplyDeleteCurious how it will sound with reduced accent but not tone - intonation is quite a major part of dialects and accents.
ReplyDeletethe real game changer would be auto translation of idiomatic turns of phrase so the call center worker can understand them.
DeleteSo... like 3, maybe 4, months till they are all fired and replaced by Real-Time AI voice tech.
ReplyDelete6 months tops.
This will kill so so many peoples jobs.. kinda sad really
ReplyDeleteNo it won't it will just increase profits to the companies using this since Teleperformance offers cheap customer support agents, they won't hire more people because of this.
DeleteSome companies have a smaller team ON SITE that deals with escalations and those won't be replaced because they're skill is not just being native english speakers but being really good agents.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI'm really curious how much power each AI assisted call is going to burn through.
ReplyDeleteAlso for me the issue is rarely their accent, the issue is either lack of understanding on their part of what the actual question is OR them being trained to just be horrible CS agents in the first place.
I called Lenovo with a question about a warranty the other day and the call was just HORRIBLE. I had a VERY simple question about it and the agent couldn't answer it. So, instead he just kept talking in circles until I asked him the same question for the 3rd time. Then he finally said yes. I asked if he was sure and he said yes. It gave me ZERO assurance that he was telling me the truth.
This happens to me 60%+ of the time I get non native English speaking CS agents on the phone no matter what the issue is.
But I don't know, maybe the issue with them is that they don't understand my question in the first place and maybe if they have AI to make customers more understandable they will be able to answer the question better?
Call centers are flowcharts with a human operator, if your question does not neatly fit into a category then they don't know.
DeleteNo one you are talking to understands the product, they just know how to follow the flowchart and are incentivized to rattle people through it as quickly as possible.
If you are asking something not on the flowchart you are wasting their time and they will say whatever is needed to get you off the line.
The people you send the device to for servicing are not the same ones on the phone. The service people never speak to the customer because their time is better spent fixing devices.
This is by design, and it is horrible.
ReplyDeleteFrom the article: Teleperformance SE, the world’s largest call center operator, is implementing an artificial intelligence system designed to soften the accents of English-speaking Indian workers in real-time. The company claims this technology will enhance customer understanding and satisfaction.
“When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard to hear, to understand,” Deputy Chief Executive Officer Thomas Mackenbrock told Bloomberg. “[This technology can] neutralize the accent of the Indian speaker with zero latency, [creates] more intimacy, increases the customer satisfaction, and reduces the average handling time.”
The technology analyzes speech input and modifies it to match a specified accent while preserving the speaker’s original voice and emotion. The system uses speech recognition to capture the speaker’s voice in real-time. Advanced algorithms then transcribe the spoken words into text, accounting for various accents and speech patterns. Once the system transcribes the speech, the core accent translation process analyzes the speaker’s accent and pronunciation patterns. Then, it applies AI models trained on datasets of various accents to modify the voice.
During the conversion, the software modifies intonation, stress patterns, and phoneme pronunciation to align with the target accent. The system employs text-to-speech (TTS) technology to synthesize the phonetic pattern and convert the text into a synthesized voice that maintains the speaker’s original tone, emotion, and identity. Teleperformance is deploying technology with background noise cancellation in Indian call centers, providing customer support for international clients. Its customers include major tech companies like Apple, TikTok, and Samsung Electronics.
I'm not gonna lie... I'd love to get my hands on one of these. My accent is extremely thick, and not in a sexy way. If AI helps me get rid of it, I'll be at least 40% less prejudiced against it.
ReplyDeleteIt seems weird that I can do a thick Indian accent impersonation but you can't fake a generic American English one?
DeleteWay to use a creepy AI illustration of a call center for this, Techspot. I guess it fits the theme.
ReplyDeleteI worked in Teleperformance, they don't have the hardware so I looked past the title and it's just an enhanced version of something like Krisp AI noise clearing tech...
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI had one Indian lady and you could hear a baby crying and fucken chickens in the background hahaha
Couldn't understand a bloody word she said. Was a blocked toilet and she asked if I had a plunger. Aussie toilet don't need or use plungers for the most part. She kept asking really stupid questions about the blocked toilet that I couldn't answer. In the long tedious end I had to scream just send a plumber!
You ring these people for maintenance in my Gov unit for these things. I'm not a licensed plumber and not allowed to dick around with the pipes. A tree has always been the issue in the past. I guess she was used to talking to Americans.
Couldn't for the life of me understand her and her accent as it was so thick. Was kinda funny after the fact, but was bloody frustrating have to interpolate everything she was saying.
This could really help :-D
Can I ask for the reverse? Make my English into their accent. Half the problem is them not understanding what I’m saying.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSo basically this is so they don’t sound from Apu from the simpsons?
I don’t know wether I’d be “more satisfied” if they sounded less Indian. It is what it is basically.
Also.. isn’t it very likely an AI program will take them all over in a couple years anyway? Why invest in this when they’re all gonna be fired soon.
If I had to guess, to generate extremely applicable and relevant training data for other AI.
Delete"Honey, wake up, they're eliminating racism"
ReplyDeleteCall centre stocks 📈📈📈
DeleteIt was already implemented in concentrix a few months ago
DeleteIndian accent is not racism but fact .. I wonder how they will improve quality of those agent which is worst in planet
Deleteyeah i know indian accent in itself is not racist, but indians being call scammers with thick indian accents and bad english is a very prominent stereotype on the internet for indians, i would say kinda harmful as well.
DeleteStereotypes don't write themselves
DeleteDon't mean they are justified tho
DeleteHuh? If stereotypes are an outcome of people's behavior then they are justified.
DeleteNot really? You need to base the behaviours around the reasons why it occurs and the social economic and political context behind it all and then tell me that are indians the only ones capable of scamming people on call??
DeleteAnd both thick Indian accent and bad English are truth .. stereotype is based on facts most of the time.. India is scammer capital of the world so it is well earned stereotype ..
DeleteWell it's not scammer capital because it's Indian dude, it has so many call centres cuz you can pay the workers less, not a lot of labour protection laws, politicians usually affiliated with these places and take a cut. It's not really a thing that represents us as a people, if the same conditions exist somewhere else, they go there too. Does it not hurt for you to be reduced only to a harmful stereotype? It's not well earned, it has real life consequences for us as a whole.
DeleteEvery westerner is once scammed by Indian dude with Indian accent from India so there goes reputation. I am not saying every Indian is scammer but majority are greedy people who will not leave any chance to scam others, I don’t need to explain it, you should know what I am talking about. We indian know its truth and not just stereotype, its cultural thing, so better to accept than justifying. If still not convenience, you can ask any foreigner who visited India, scam start right from airport taxi to leaving India.. its just sad state..
Delete"The French company has around 90,000 employees in India and tens of thousands in other countries which serve customers in the UK including the government, the NHS, Vodafone and eBay. The AI-driven solution has been developed by Palo Alto-based startup Sanas which also includes background noise cancellation technology that filters out disruptive sounds such as office chatter, sirens, or even crowing roosters to improve call quality.
ReplyDeleteThe software is already used by companies like UPS and Walmart. Teleperformance’s Markus Schmitt told investors on Thursday that the technology helps them ‘to neutralise accents’ in real-time.
He shared that many times their India employees have difficulty in talking and the same has been observed with their US clients.
He added that the technology can “neutralise the accent of the Indian speaker with zero latency,” creating “more intimacy, increases the customer satisfaction, and reduces the average handling time: it is a win-win for both parties.”
The technology was developed by a US startup Sanas. Teleperformance invested $13 million in Sanas earlier this year, in a bid to promote AI partnerships this year. It has committed to investing nearly $104 million in such partnerships this year."
Can they build AI to replace agents completely so quality can improve for customers.?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteAI is not IVR .. educate yourself
DeleteScam call centres will love this
ReplyDeleteYour windows computer has a virus but don't worry I will fix it after you purchase gift cards.
DeleteOmg, they just opened a Pandora's box. Imagine able to change your accent to US accent and getting away with scam.
DeleteGotta respect the hustle, am I wrong?
ReplyDeleteYou aren't wrong at all
DeleteSome hustle it is for scam call centres
DeleteIs it actually implemented anywhere?
ReplyDeletePilots are running at the moment.
DeleteYes. Walmart is using it
DeleteThat's interesting! Let's rock the market!
DeleteThis is genius
ReplyDeleteI don't care what the accent is - if I call and tell you that I tried turning the computer off and on again 3 times and it didn't help, and the first thing you tell me is to turn the computer off and on again, I will be upset.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not.. if you actually worked in customer support.. statistically the customer most likely did not do it and it is often a simple fix like this. It is just a question, double check and move on
DeleteNo, I'm not going to waste my time. I'll repeat what I said and tell them to move on. I've only called for support twice in my life and they have never been able to resolve an issue even after level 2 or 3 escalation (the power on/off is just an example, I've never called on simple issues and I'll go through all the steps that I have already taken to troubleshoot). I believe the majority of your customers are idiots and liars, doesn't mean you should treat me like a liar or idiot.
DeleteI've been building and upgrading PCs/laptops since 1996. I don't care if most customers are idiots. I've waited 20 minutes to get to a human, spent several minutes explaining the symptoms and my troubleshooting steps - should be obvious it is above the PEBKAC user level, so don't waste my time because you can only go by a script instead of listening to what I am saying. If you know the script which you should since you go through it daily, you know that what I have explained is everything your script covers - just escalate to level 2. I don't care if your policy is script first, it's just wasting my time after already wasting my time on hold.
It's actually brilliant. The employees will also face less abuse from the callers.
ReplyDeleteThat's hilarious.
ReplyDeleteWhich accent will they replace it with? If India is the world's largest English-speaking population, shouldn't the accent default to ours anyway?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteIs this bait? Considering your username
Deletehe is likely scammed by indian. and this is his coping mechanism
DeleteNo just truth…having trouble to digest .?
Delete