The World’s Call Center Capital Is Gripped by AI Fever — and Fear
全球呼叫中心之都正被人工智能热潮和恐惧所笼罩

While the rest of the world is still debating what artificial intelligence might mean for jobs, citizens in the Philippines are already living in the new reality.
当世界其他地区仍在争论人工智能可能意味着什么时，菲律宾的公民已经在新的现实中生活。

The same relentless drive to cut labor costs that saw back-office roles shipped to the archipelago in the first place is now starting to turn over some of their duties to bots. All of the major players in its vast outsourcing industry, which is forecast to cross $38 billion in revenue this year, are rushing to rollout AI tools to stay competitive and defend their business models.
驱动削减劳动力成本的同一股力量，当初将后台角色转移到群岛，现在开始将其中一些职责转移给机器人。其庞大的外包行业的所有主要参与者，预计今年收入将超过 380 亿美元，都在争先恐后地推出人工智能工具，以保持竞争力并维护其商业模式。

Over the past eight or nine months, most have introduced some form of AI “copilot.” These algorithms mainly work alongside human operators, doing tasks like summarizing all previous contact a customer has had with the company, whether that’s via call or email to prevent the need for a lengthy explanatory conversation — theoretically at least. Such a process requires the chaining together of advanced speech recognition technology, content processing, sifting through vast amounts of data, analyzing sentiments and providing contextual responses — all in real time. It would have been the stuff of science fiction only a few years ago.
在过去八九个月里，大多数公司都引入了某种形式的 AI “副驾驶”。这些算法主要与人工操作员协同工作，执行诸如总结客户与公司所有先前联系（无论是电话还是电子邮件）的任务，以避免冗长的解释性对话——至少在理论上是这样。这样的过程需要将先进的语音识别技术、内容处理、筛选大量数据、分析情绪和提供上下文响应等环节串联起来，而且所有这些都需要实时完成。仅仅几年前，这还属于科幻小说范畴。

Big Take Asia 大亚洲

Your Call Center Helper Is Now an AI
您的呼叫中心助手现在是 AI

16:07

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For some, the rapid deployment of such tools has been a harsh awakening. Christopher Bautista, 47, had worked in the call center industry for nearly two decades. In his last job on a tech support desk he’d watched as AI took on more responsibility in gatekeeping customer calls and asking questions before routing to human agents. Then last November, along with about 70 other people, he says, he was abruptly put on so-called floating status — no work, no pay, but still on the books — after the client pulled the contract. He quit six months later for a job in sales while still waiting for reassignment. "AI will take over our jobs,” Bautista said. “It’s cheaper and more efficient."
对于一些人来说，这些工具的快速部署是一个残酷的觉醒。47 岁的克里斯托弗·鲍蒂斯塔在呼叫中心行业工作了近二十年。在他最后一份技术支持台的工作中，他目睹了人工智能在接听客户电话、提问并转接给人工客服方面承担了越来越多的责任。然后，去年 11 月，他说，他和大约 70 人一起被突然安排到所谓的“浮动状态”——没有工作，没有工资，但仍在公司名单上——因为客户撤回了合同。六个月后，他辞职去了一家销售公司，同时仍在等待重新分配。“人工智能会取代我们的工作，”鲍蒂斯塔说。“它更便宜，更高效。”

Tales like Bautista’s remain relatively isolated, with headcount in the industry still on the rise. But they might not be for long. Avasant, an outsourcing advisory firm that works extensively in the Philippines, estimates that up to 300,000 business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs could be lost in the country to AI in the next five years.
像鲍蒂斯塔这样的故事仍然相对孤立，该行业的人数仍在增加。但这种情况可能不会持续太久。Avasant 是一家外包咨询公司，在菲律宾开展广泛业务，该公司估计，未来五年，菲律宾可能会有多达 30 万个商业流程外包（BPO）工作岗位被人工智能取代。

“This poses a once-in-a-lifetime risk and opportunity for the industry in the Philippines,” said Akshay Khanna, managing partner at Avasant, whose analysis estimates AI could also create up to 100,000 jobs in new roles like training algorithms or curating data. “It's not all doom and gloom.”
“这对菲律宾的行业来说是一个千载难逢的风险和机遇，”Avasant 管理合伙人阿克谢·卡纳说，他的分析估计人工智能还可能在算法训练或数据整理等新角色中创造多达 10 万个工作岗位。“并非所有都是厄运。”

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the BPO sector to the Philippines. It’s the country’s biggest source of private sector jobs and the biggest sectoral contributor to gross domestic product. Socially, the centers are a source of decent money for non-university-educated Filipinos that doesn’t require them to work abroad. The government had been banking on the industry to help it move up the value chain, propel its 100-million-plus citizens into the middle class and kickstart the creation of other white-collar jobs. But AI arrived before that’s happened.
很难夸大 BPO 行业对菲律宾的重要性。它是该国最大的私营部门就业来源，也是对国内生产总值贡献最大的行业。在社会上，这些中心为没有大学学历的菲律宾人提供了一份体面的收入来源，而且不需要他们出国工作。政府一直寄希望于该行业帮助其提升价值链，将超过 1 亿的人口带入中产阶级，并启动其他白领工作的创造。但人工智能的到来比这早。

While there’s been plenty of obituaries written for the call center industry over the years, historically the real-world technological solutions were underwhelming, to say the least. There were annoying text bots on websites that simply regurgitated an FAQ page you’d already read, or voice menu systems that couldn’t cope with even the slightest off-script query.
尽管多年来人们对呼叫中心行业写了不少讣告，但从历史上看，现实世界中的技术解决方案却令人失望，至少可以说。网站上那些令人讨厌的文本机器人只是重复你已经读过的常见问题解答页面，或者语音菜单系统甚至无法处理最轻微的脚本外查询。

But things are changing rapidly. In February, payments company Klarna Bank AB announced AI bots were conducting two-thirds of all customer service interactions, equaling the work of 700 full-time agents, sparking a plunge in the shares of a number of major call-center operators. In May, OpenAI Inc. demoed a sighing, chuckling ChatGPT-4o that adroitly troubleshot a call to customer support about a new iPhone that wouldn't power up.
但情况正在迅速变化。2 月，支付公司 Klarna Bank AB宣布，人工智能聊天机器人正在进行三分之二的客户服务互动，相当于 700 名全职代理的工作量，引发了大量主要呼叫中心运营商的股价下跌。5 月，OpenAI Inc. 展示了一个会叹气、会咯咯笑的ChatGPT-4o，它熟练地解决了一个关于新 iPhone 无法开机的客户支持电话。

The threat to the sort of back-office jobs like customer service agents and tech support that the Philippines specializes in is obvious. Experts like Carsten Jung, head of macroeconomics and AI at the London-based think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research, say that policymakers need to be preparing now to avoid a disruptive transition. “Social security and tax systems need to evolve to make sure the benefits of AI are widely shared,” he said.
菲律宾专门从事客户服务代理和技术支持等后台工作的威胁显而易见。像伦敦智库公共政策研究机构宏观经济学和人工智能负责人卡斯滕·荣格这样的专家表示，政策制定者现在需要做好准备，以避免颠覆性的转型。“社会保障和税收制度需要不断发展，以确保人工智能的益处得到广泛分享，”他说。

Rather than going down this route though, the choice the Philippines has made is to try and lean into the tech revolution. As the world’s second-biggest outsourcing center after India, it’s already where many of the new AI tools are being tested. The government has set up an AI research center and multiple training initiatives are underway, some government supported, others industry backed, to try and boost the capabilities of the sector’s 1.7 million employees.
然而，菲律宾并没有走这条路，而是选择拥抱科技革命。作为仅次于印度的全球第二大外包中心，菲律宾已经是许多新的人工智能工具的测试地。政府建立了人工智能研究中心，并正在开展多项培训计划，其中一些由政府支持，另一些由行业支持，旨在提升该行业 170 万名员工的能力。

“If you don't upskill, obviously, AI will replace you,” said National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Arsenio Balisacan. “That's the challenge for us.”
“如果你不提升技能，很明显，人工智能会取代你，”国家经济发展署秘书阿森尼奥·巴利萨坎说。“这对我们来说是一个挑战。”

AI in Action

At [24]7.ai’s busy contact center in Manila’s Bonifacio Global City tech hub, the current slightly uneasy coexistence between the old and new is on full display. On one floor are old-school agents, many dressed in customer-branded polo shirts. They’re tasked with trying to persuade customers not to cancel their mobile plans. From time to time, the floor reverberates with hooting and hollering, as agents cheer themselves and colleagues on for hitting their daily targets.
在[24]7.ai 位于马尼拉博尼法西奥全球城的繁忙联络中心，旧与新的略显不安的共存状态尽显无疑。在一层楼上，是老派的客服人员，许多人穿着印有客户品牌的 polo 衫。他们的任务是试图说服客户不要取消他们的移动计划。不时地，楼层里会响起欢呼声和叫喊声，因为客服人员为达到每日目标而互相加油鼓劲。

But on another floor, ChatGPT is training customer agents. It’s being used to provide the other end of roleplaying calls for new hires, as they learn how to handle a tense or distressed customer on the verge of canceling. And it does so in the guise of many different personas, whether that’s a Gen Z female, a boomer male, an irate caller or a tough bargainer.
但在另一层楼，ChatGPT 正在培训客户代理。它被用来为新员工提供角色扮演电话的另一端，让他们学习如何处理即将取消的紧张或沮丧的客户。它以许多不同的角色出现，无论是 Z 世代女性、婴儿潮一代男性、愤怒的呼叫者还是强硬的讨价还价者。

Company co-founder and Chief Executive Officer PV Kannan said the AI training has slashed the time it takes new staff to get up to speed with what they’ll have to do on live calls to about a month, compared to the previous 90 days. He’s sure there will always be a need for some agents because the world is too messy for bots to handle on their own whether it be travelers frantically calling to cancel flights amid severe weather, extreme situations like the pandemic or simply clients introducing new features, new pricing models or new bundling.
公司联合创始人兼首席执行官PV Kannan表示，人工智能培训将新员工熟悉现场电话工作所需的时间缩短至大约一个月，而之前需要 90 天。他确信，总会有对一些座席的需求，因为世界太混乱，机器人无法独自处理，无论是旅客在恶劣天气中疯狂打电话取消航班，还是像疫情这样的极端情况，或者仅仅是客户引入新功能、新定价模式或新捆绑服务。

But the future for humans, Silicon Valley-based Kannan said, is now more as “middleware” — and he for one is sure that redefined role means fewer jobs.
但总部位于硅谷的坎南表示，人类的未来现在更多地是作为“中间件”——而他本人确信，重新定义的角色意味着更少的工作岗位。

“The unknown is at what speed AI will disrupt the industry. Two years?” said Kannan, whose company employs 12,000 people globally, with 5,000 in the Philippines. “Half the players are in denial and pretending there will be zero impact.”
“人工智能将以何种速度颠覆行业，两年吗？”Kannan 说，他的公司在全球拥有 12,000 名员工，其中 5,000 名在菲律宾。“一半的玩家都在否认，假装不会有任何影响。”

Other major players have also undertaken extensive AI rollouts. At Nasdaq-listed Concentrix Corp.’s 23-floor main Manila office, its AI assistant is operating alongside tens of thousands of agents. It listens to conversations, summarizes chats for other agents, analyzes negative sentiments and stands ready to flag to managers any non-compliant staff utterances, or caller requests to speak to the legal department.
其他主要参与者也进行了大规模的人工智能部署。在纳斯达克上市的康赛恩思公司位于马尼拉的 23 层主办公室内，其人工智能助手与数万名代理人并肩工作。它倾听对话，为其他代理人总结聊天内容，分析负面情绪，并随时准备向经理标记任何不符合规定的员工言论或呼叫者要求与法律部门交谈。

Chris Caldwell, chief executive officer of Concentrix, which employs 100,000 workers in the Philippines across 51 sites, says it’s just the start. “This technology isn't waiting for anyone," he said. “And I'm not sure many countries are moving as fast as the tech companies are moving.”
康仕达首席执行官克里斯·卡尔德威尔表示，这仅仅是个开始。康仕达在菲律宾拥有 51 个站点，雇佣了 10 万名员工。“这项技术不会等待任何人，”他说。“我不确定有多少国家能像科技公司那样快速发展。”

Caldwell, like many executives in the industry, doesn’t want to talk in terms of jobs lost. He says AI will create different roles, such as in data annotation or correction, which many of the existing talent pool of workers would be well suited for.
卡尔德威尔，像行业中的许多高管一样，不想谈论工作岗位的流失。他说，人工智能将创造不同的角色，例如数据标注或校正，许多现有的员工队伍将非常适合这些角色。

Indeed, local trade association forecasts are still for outright growth in both headcount and revenue over the next few years. Jack Madrid, president and CEO of trade body IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines, says he’s met with at least 80 companies interested in setting up or scaling up BPOs in the Philippines, largely because of the rising costs of operating in the US.
事实上，当地贸易协会的预测仍然是未来几年员工人数和收入的全面增长。 Jack Madrid，菲律宾信息技术和商业流程协会主席兼首席执行官，表示他已会见了至少 80 家有意在菲律宾设立或扩大 BPO 的公司，这主要是由于在美国运营成本上升。

“We are at an interesting juncture,” Madrid said. “The uncertainty and paranoia over jobs has been replaced with a realization that the cost of integrating genAI [generative AI] is still steep, and we need to grasp the one- to two-year window and get our workforce skilled.”
“我们正处于一个有趣的转折点，”马德里说。“人们对工作的不确定性和恐慌已经被一种认识所取代，即整合生成式 AI 的成本仍然很高，我们需要抓住一到两年的窗口期，让我们的员工掌握技能。”

And there is certainly no shortage of people who want to enter the industry despite its darker side, which includes the disorientation of working frequent overnight shifts — there’s a 12-hour time difference between New York and Manila — and regular verbal abuse from customers.
尽管行业存在阴暗面，但仍然不乏想要进入该行业的人，包括经常上夜班带来的时差问题——纽约和马尼拉之间有 12 个小时的时差——以及来自客户的经常性言语辱骂。

Facebook groups remain full of discussions of ways to get a job in the industry and at Manila’s huge BPO tech parks — which include cafes, karaoke rooms, clinics, laundries and recruitment hubs — walk-ins as young as 18 go through a series of tests and interviews, and exit a couple of hours later with a job offer in hand, at a salary of at least 13,300 pesos ($236) a month, plus allowances. Do well and that can climb. (The average contact center salesperson earned 20,869 pesos a month in 2022, comparable to a private sector nurse, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority’s latest annual survey.)
Facebook 群组里充斥着关于如何在该行业以及马尼拉大型 BPO 科技园区（包括咖啡馆、卡拉 OK 房、诊所、洗衣店和招聘中心）找到工作的讨论。18 岁的年轻人可以参加一系列测试和面试，并在几个小时后拿到一份月薪至少 13,300 比索（236 美元）加上津贴的工作。表现出色，薪资还可以提高。（根据菲律宾统计局 最新年度调查，2022 年平均呼叫中心销售人员的月薪为 20,869 比索，与私营部门护士的薪资相当。）

Yet signs of change and angst are visible. Jihan Elijah Paloma, 32, and her brother, husband and three-year-old daughter, live a two-hour drive southwest of Manila’s downtown in the neighboring city of General Trias.
然而，变革和焦虑的迹象是可见的。32 岁的吉汉·以利亚·帕洛玛和她的兄弟、丈夫和三岁的女儿住在马尼拉市中心西南方向两小时车程外的邻近城市，将军特里亚斯。

All of the adults in the household work in the call center industry, just one example of how the BPO rush has brought jobs and prosperity to not just the capital but also its suburbs and far-flung islands. Once short of money for food, the family table is now full. Paloma, who works on Capital One Financial Corp.’s credit card helpline, is saving to buy her own home and can also afford a nanny, allowing her to sleep during the day. “The industry has changed my life,” she said. “If AI takes away my job, I don't know what I'd do.”
这个家庭的所有成年人都从事呼叫中心行业，这仅仅是 BPO 热潮如何为首都及其郊区和偏远岛屿带来就业和繁荣的一个例子。曾经为食物发愁的家庭餐桌现在已经丰盛起来。在Capital One Financial Corp.的信用卡热线工作的帕洛玛正在攒钱买自己的房子，而且还能负担得起保姆，让她白天可以睡觉。“这个行业改变了我的生活，”她说。“如果人工智能取代了我的工作，我不知道该怎么办。”

More than many, she’s aware how rapidly things are moving. After 17 years in the industry, her husband earlier this year got a new job in quality assurance at AI startup Sanas, one of many that are blurring the line between where the tech starts and the human ends. Its software helps harmonize accents and eliminates background noise — crowing roosters, ambulance sirens, office chatter — helping conversations flow smoothly.
她比许多人更清楚地意识到事情正在飞速发展。在行业工作了 17 年后，她的丈夫今年早些时候在 AI 初创公司 Sanas 找到了一份质量保证的工作，这家公司是众多模糊了科技与人类界限的公司之一。其软件有助于协调口音并消除背景噪音——鸡鸣、救护车警笛、办公室闲聊——帮助对话顺利进行。

That might sound like it will help operatives, rather than displace them, but the implication of tools like this carry a risk for the Philippines. Since the 1990s, it’s built a market-leading position not just on being cheaper than the US, but by having a preponderance of high-quality English speakers culturally attuned to the West. If things like accent are no longer a competitive factor, what’s to stop foreign-owned corporations moving to even lower-priced places like Egypt or Ghana, where the BPO industry is starting to expand?
这听起来像是帮助运营人员，而不是取代他们，但这种工具的含义对菲律宾来说存在风险。自 20 世纪 90 年代以来，菲律宾不仅凭借比美国更低廉的价格，而且凭借大量具有西方文化背景的高质量英语使用者，建立了市场领先地位。如果口音不再是竞争因素，那么什么能阻止外资公司迁往埃及或加纳等价格更低的地方，那里正在开始发展 BPO 行业？

“The last generation tools didn’t learn but these bots are always listening, learning, understanding the context, the accent and the customer,” said Christine Caballero, 37, who heads Sanas’s Philippines operations. “It’s likely soon that customers won’t even be able to tell they’re talking to an AI bot."
“上一代工具没有学习，但这些机器人一直在倾听、学习、理解语境、口音和客户，”37 岁的 克里斯蒂娜·卡瓦列罗 说，她负责 Sanas 在菲律宾的运营。“很快，客户可能甚至无法分辨出他们是在和 AI 机器人交谈。”

Client Concerns 客户疑虑

Giving hope to those counting on the continued need for humans, there are plenty of signs that despite all the progress, technological solutions are still far from infallible. A number of companies have undertaken splashy rollouts, only to backtrack later either when the tech malfunctioned, or still needed substantial human help.
给那些指望人类持续需求的人带来希望的是，尽管取得了所有进展，但技术解决方案仍然远非完美无缺。许多公司进行了大张旗鼓的推出，但后来却不得不退缩，要么是因为技术故障，要么是因为仍然需要大量的人力帮助。

Consider Air Canada. In November 2022, its chatbot assured passenger Jake Moffatt that he could book a full-fare flight for his grandmother's funeral and then apply for a bereavement fare later, though no such retrospective discount was available. When Moffatt challenged the airline in court, its lawyers argued the company wasn't liable because the chatbot was “responsible for its own actions.” That cut no ice with the judge, who this year ordered the airline to pay damages. It’s unclear exactly what technology was powering the bot — a spokesperson for Air Canada said it wasn’t AI but declined to answer any other questions about the incident.
以加拿大航空为例。2022 年 11 月，其聊天机器人向乘客杰克·莫法特保证，他可以为祖母的葬礼预订全价机票，然后申请丧葬票价，尽管没有这种事后折扣。当莫法特在法庭上挑战航空公司时，其律师辩称该公司不承担责任，因为聊天机器人“对其自身行为负责”。这并没有让法官信服，今年法官命令航空公司支付赔偿金。目前尚不清楚究竟是什么技术在驱动该机器人——加拿大航空公司的一位发言人表示，它不是人工智能，但拒绝回答有关该事件的任何其他问题。

Or Amazon.com Inc., which made a big stir about using AI systems in its Just Walk Out cashier-free grocery stores. The stores were found to rely heavily on plain old human labor, with workers in India labeling the data for object recognition and standing by to review problem transactions. (An Amazon spokeswoman pointed to a previous comment in a blog, that most AI systems require continuous improvement.) In April, Amazon said it would be pulling the system from its US stores.
或者亚马逊公司，该公司在使用人工智能系统方面引起了很大轰动，其Just Walk Out无收银员杂货店。这些商店被发现严重依赖普通的人力，印度的工人为物体识别标记数据，并随时待命以审查有问题的交易。（亚马逊发言人指出了之前在博客中的一条评论，即大多数人工智能系统都需要持续改进。）4 月，亚马逊表示将从其美国商店中撤回该系统。

Sidharth Mukherjee, San Francisco-based chief executive officer of TP Infinity, the digital services arm of Teleperformance SE, says his clients frequently cite the Air Canada incident as a cause of nerves about more widespread deployment of AI. “Clients are excited about driving efficiency but anxious about the risks,” he said.
总部位于旧金山的 Teleperformance SE 数字服务部门 TP Infinity 首席执行官西达斯·穆克吉表示，他的客户经常将加拿大航空事件作为对更广泛部署人工智能的担忧原因。“客户对提高效率感到兴奋，但对风险感到焦虑，”他说。

Still, many are pressing ahead. Yusuf Tayob, Accenture Plc.’s US-based CEO of operations which employs over 85,000 workers in the Philippines, says legacy contact centers are ripe for disruption. He cites the example of one center operated by a client in the Middle East where AI is already deflecting 20% of call volumes from humans.
尽管如此，许多人仍在不断前进。埃森哲公司驻美国运营首席执行官尤素福·泰奥布表示，传统呼叫中心正处于颠覆的边缘。他以中东地区一家客户运营的呼叫中心为例，该中心已经利用人工智能将 20% 的呼叫量从人工客服转移到人工智能。

“We could conceivably triple that in a year,” Tayob said, adding that the challenges are less about the technology, and more around data and human behavior. He estimates that about 40% of all working hours across industries will be impacted by AI models and bots, and says clients are scrambling to be on the front foot. Accenture made its speediest run to a billion dollars in sales for any new technology for its generative AI suite of products, and has clocked $2 billion in sales so far this year. “It’s one of the fastest adoption rates of tech we've ever seen,” Tayob said.
“我们有可能在一年内将这个数字翻三倍，”泰奥布说，并补充说挑战更多地在于数据和人类行为，而不是技术本身。他估计，所有行业约 40% 的工作时间将受到人工智能模型和机器人的影响，并表示客户正在争先恐后地抢占先机。埃森哲在其生成式人工智能产品套件中创造了有史以来最快的十亿美元销售额，今年迄今已实现 20 亿美元的销售额。“这是我们见过的技术采用速度最快的之一，”泰奥布说。

The question is whether despite all the talk of training, the Philippines is remotely ready. The government has yet to put a figure on how much it is ultimately planning to spend, and politicians like opposition senator Risa Hontiveros worry it’s moving too slowly. “The government should be more concerned and draw up a range of scenarios — including worst-case scenarios,” she said. “The Philippines, unfortunately, is ill-equipped to protect our workers from getting swept away by the AI wave.”
问题是，尽管谈论了培训，菲律宾是否做好了准备。政府尚未公布最终计划的支出金额，反对派参议员丽莎·洪蒂维罗斯等政客担心政府行动太慢。“政府应该更加关注，制定一系列情景，包括最坏情况，”她说。“不幸的是，菲律宾没有做好准备，无法保护我们的工人免受人工智能浪潮的冲击。”

Sitting in a coffee shop in Manila, Joniel Godino, 32, says that’s his concern too. In 2021, after 12 years in the BPO industry, he lost his job at Australian telecoms company Telstra Group Ltd. Over the next few years, he watched as Telstra embarked on a series of AI trials to try and make customer service agents more efficient. In February, the company publicly announced the results — AI tools had resulted in 20% fewer follow-up requests from customers, and it would now be rolling out the tech to all call centers. Just months later, Telstra announced it would be cutting 2,800 jobs across its operations.
坐在马尼拉一家咖啡馆里，32 岁的乔尼尔·戈迪诺说，这也是他的担忧。2021 年，在 BPO 行业工作了 12 年后，他在澳大利亚电信公司 Telstra Group Ltd. 失去了工作。在接下来的几年里，他目睹了 Telstra 进行了一系列 AI 试验，试图提高客户服务代理的效率。今年 2 月，该公司公开宣布了结果——AI 工具导致客户后续请求减少了 20%，现在将把这项技术推广到所有呼叫中心。仅仅几个月后，Telstra 宣布将在其运营中裁员2,800 人。

The company said the two issues are unconnected. “While AI is absolutely helping us be more efficient and deliver better outcomes for our customers, we have not announced any job reductions that are linked to AI,” a Telstra spokesman said in a statement.
该公司表示这两个问题没有关联。“虽然人工智能绝对帮助我们提高效率，为客户提供更好的结果，但我们还没有宣布任何与人工智能相关的裁员，”Telstra 发言人在声明中说。

Godino though has already quit the call center industry for good, convinced that no matter who the employer, his compatriots working in customer service and other back-office roles are now on borrowed time. He’s no technophobe: In his new freelance role as a virtual assistant he’s using AI to help him write marketing material for his clients, including a short-term-rental executive in the UK. “One time the CEO caught me and said, this sounds too American. Now I prompt ChatGPT to make it more British,” he said.
尽管戈迪诺已经彻底告别了呼叫中心行业，但他确信，无论雇主是谁，他的同胞在客户服务和其他后台角色中都处于借来的时间。他不是一个技术恐惧症患者：在他作为虚拟助理的新自由职业角色中，他正在使用人工智能来帮助他为客户撰写营销材料，包括英国的一位短期租赁主管。“有一次，首席执行官抓到我，说这听起来太美国了。现在我提示 ChatGPT 让它更英国化，”他说。

But he’s still worried about the future. “It’s the nature of businesses to find efficiency,” said Godino. Many workers are “wearing headphones not just physically but also metaphorically.”
但他仍然担心未来。“这是企业寻求效率的本质，”戈迪诺说。许多工人“不仅在身体上戴着耳机，而且在比喻上也是如此”。