If you’ve ever struggled with calling a customer service center because they don’t have anyone who speaks your language, fear no more, as a new artificial intelligence program may offer a solution.
Not only does it speak 200 different languages, but a new form of AI can also detect and translate 75 dialects, as many look at what could be a revolutionary new tool in the world of customer service and beyond.
The new AI translation tool, Alorica Clear, comes from the Irvine, California-based company Alorica, which runs customer service centers worldwide.
The company boasts on its website that the AI will help save “up to 50% in site by delivering all-language support from a centralized Center of Excellence.”
The tool will allow Alorica representatives who speak only one language to field complaints from those who speak another, eliminating the need for the company to hire language-specific personnel.
But those worried about the tool eliminating jobs shouldn’t, as Alorica says it isn’t cutting jobs but instead hiring more aggressively.
“We’ve all experienced how language barriers and misses of cultural nuance can negatively impact customer interactions. We decided to address this issue as our clients are increasingly focused on global expansion,” Max Schwendner, Alorica’s Co-CEO, shared in June after the company received an award for its breakthrough in AI.
AI has been a hot topic since the emergence of ChatGPT from OpenAI.
While Alorica has been able to retain staff and potentially hire more to work in partnership with the AI, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has been on the record, saying the technology will lead to a reduction in staff size for some companies.
“AI is going to eliminate a lot of current jobs, and this is going to change the way that a lot of current jobs function,” Altman said in a discussion at MIT in May.
However, prior to those comments, Altman said last September that AI would create jobs, not kill them.
“I’m excited that this technology can bring the missing productivity gains of the last few decades back,” Altman said last year.
Either way, there has yet to be a massive change in staffing in any industry due to artificial intelligence.