Is AI coming for call center jobs in India? Experts weigh in

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AI is quickly becoming part of our everyday livesand it might soon take over a lot of jobs too. One place where the change is already happening is India’s huge call center industry, which currently employs over 3 million people.

A report by The Washington Post says that some big changes have already started. In 2023, a new software was introduced that changed the way call center agents sound, basically helping them speak in a more Western accent while talking to customers abroad. It’s now being used by more than 42,000 agents. Companies call it “accent translation,” but critics say it’s just a way to erase how people really sound, more like “digital whitewashing”.

That’s just one part of the story. AI is also now handling things like answering basic customer questions, checking if calls are going smoothly, and even giving agents suggested replies during a call. In some cases, the bots are taking over the calls completely.

People who’ve been watching this closely are concerned. One expert, Mark Serdar, said that in the next couple of years, a lot of entry-level jobs could disappear. Even TCS’s CEO, one of the top voices in India’s tech world, said that call centers may not be needed much in the near future.

But it’s not all bad news. While some jobs are going away, new ones are showing up. For example, people are being hired to help train AI systems—by labelling data or checking how well the tools are working. Many of these jobs are even going to women in smaller towns, giving them new opportunities.

Still, it’s clear that not everyone will be able to make the switch. Some workers may struggle to learn the new skills needed to stay in the game.

As Prithvijit Roy, a former AI lead at Accenture, put it, “It’s like the industrial revolution. Some will suffer.”

So yes—AI is coming, and it's coming fast. The real question is: can we keep up?