There’s a lot of talk about technology taking over the drudgery work and allowing people to focus on more creative, more value-added work, but there’s also the potential to replace a lot of human functions, what’s happening isn’t that you eliminate a 50-person department.

Alex Kozlov

Categorized in : U.S.

When you look at offshore business providers, they built their business model on hiring really smart, well-trained people who are paid very little. That model has been very successful, what’s going to happen if contact centers are run by machines? A lot of jobs are going away. People can’t compete with intelligent machines. It’s completely disrupting the service provider model.

The potential goes way beyond automating repetitive tasks, but even in a contact center, the remaining humans don’t have to fear for their jobs just yet. Amelia is not replacing them right now. But it could be coming soon. Just a few short years ago, the experts at MIT were predicting we would never have a driverless car, and now Google has them on the road. The pace of change is so rapid—almost exponential—that even though Amelia is not yet really operational in too many situations, she’s learning very quickly and the landscape two years from now could be completely different.