Told the staff, but it was a robot... AI vs Human Call Center War

After AI Adoption, Forced Unpaid Leave and Resignations Continue in the Philippines
"Up to 300,000 Jobs to Disappear Over the Next 5 Years"
"Calls for Opportunity Creation Using AI Technology"

In the Philippines, where global companies' call centers are concentrated, artificial intelligence (AI) is taking away jobs from human call center employees, leading to a full-scale battle between machines and humans. As AI technology is considered the first sector where labor can be replaced, the intense conflict is being closely watched worldwide.

Bloomberg recently reported, "'The world's call center capital' is gripped by fear amid the AI boom," adding that "outsourcing workers in the Philippines are showing what office workers around the world will face in the near future."

Christopher Bautista, who worked as a call center technical support agent in the Philippines for nearly 20 years, was placed on unpaid leave last November along with about 70 colleagues. This was the result of workforce reductions as AI replaced call center employee tasks. He then worked in sales for six months and is currently on standby.

Jihan Eliya Paloma, who works at a credit card company call center, is anxious about the AI-driven replacement of employees, as she, her husband, and her older brother all work in call centers. She explained that "If AI takes my job, I don't know what I would do," and that her husband, a 17-year call center veteran, already switched to an AI startup earlier this year.

In the Philippines, it is common to use ChatGPT to train call center agents. To prepare new employees for various situations, AI takes on multiple characters regardless of age or gender to simulate complaints, allowing trainees to practice responses. In another call center, AI is used to summarize conversations handled by human agents to assist with work processing.

Global companies are busy transforming call centers using AI technology. Swedish fintech company Klarna Bank reported that AI bots handle two-thirds of customer service, equivalent to the workload of 700 full-time agents. In May, OpenAI released GPT-4o, an AI voice model accelerating the development of AI technology capable of human-like conversations.

The Philippines is considered the world's second-largest outsourcing center after India. The call center industry is the largest private sector job creator in the Philippines and significantly impacts the national economy. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the average monthly salary for call center sales staff in 2022 was 20,869 pesos (about 500,000 KRW), similar to that of private hospital nurses.

Abasent, a Philippine outsourcing consulting firm, estimated that up to 300,000 business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs could disappear due to AI over the next five years. BPO jobs include simple and non-core tasks such as call centers, human resources management, and data entry. However, if workers take on new roles like training AI algorithms or curating data, there is potential to create 100,000 new jobs.

Arkshay Kana, a partner at Abasent, said, "The outsourcing industry in the Philippines will face both unprecedented risks and opportunities," adding, "Not everyone is facing a bleak situation." Some believe that as AI is used in call center operations, demand for Philippine services may increase due to high operating costs in countries like the United States.

Chris Caldwell, CEO of Concentrix, headquartered in Newark, California, which operates about 50 call center sites in the Philippines and employs 100,000 Filipino workers, believes AI will perform various roles that help existing staff adapt to their jobs more easily. In fact, one Philippine call center praised AI-based training for reducing the onboarding period for new employees from 90 days to about one month.

The Philippine government is closely monitoring these changes, recognizing their significant impact on the national economy, and is seeking countermeasures such as establishing AI research centers. Arsenio Balisacan, the Philippine Secretary of Socioeconomic Planning, stated, "If you do not learn new technologies, AI will definitely replace you (humans)," adding, "That is the challenge we must solve."