Wednesday, May 27, 2020

The pandemic is emptying call centers. AI chatbots are swooping in - Karen Hao, MIT Technology Review

Covid-19 is accelerating job losses in an industry that was already automating work at a rapid pace. As the coronavirus crisis has dragged on, understaffed government agencies, grocery stores, and financial services have all scrambled to set up similar systems for handling a new influx of calls. IBM saw a 40% increase in traffic to Watson Assistant from February to April of this year. In April, Google also launched the Rapid Response Virtual Agent, a special version of its Contact Center AI, and lowered the price of its service in response to client demand.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/14/1001716/ai-chatbots-take-call-center-jobs-during-coronavirus-pandemic/