Ecommerce platform CEO faces wave of criticism on social media after announcing that he fired 90% of his company’s customer servicein favor of an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that he says has outperformed human employees. Sumit Shah31-year-old CEO of the company Dukan from Bangalore shared the news in a series of tweets on 11 July.

“Because of our AI chatbot, we had to lay off 90% of our support staff. Difficult? Yes. Necessary? Certainly,” Shah wrote in a thread that has since been viewed more than 1.5 million times. In the same tweet, Shah stated that it took the AI ​​chatbot less than two minutes to respond to customer inquiries, while it took the support team over two hours.

He also stressed that replacing the helpdesk with a chatbot has resulted in a reduction in customer service costs by about 85%. In an interview with Insider, Shah explained that the layoffs took place in September 2022, when Duukan, which now employs 60 people, fired 23 of its 26 members of its support team.

Excuses don’t convince

Despite Shah’s explanation, Twitter and Reddit users disapproved of the decision. To date, over 600 Twitter users have quoted Shah’s tweet, most of them criticizing both the CEO and Duukan.

Twitter user @adityarao310, whose tweet received more likes than Shah’s own tweet, wrote: “Don’t fool yourself. The support team was fired because the business was failing and the funding was exhausted. It’s not because of AI“. Another user @samikshagoel20 shared Shah’s tweet with the following caption: “How not to announce a layoff“.

On Reddit, user u/kakapooopoopeepeeshir commented in the thread: “Approximatelyor terrified of a future where we will never talk to customer service people again, which means we never solve problems, we are just transferred from one bot to another“.

In response to online criticism, Shah admitted he regrets starting discussions on layoffs on Twitter, but reinforced his belief that AI is replacing jobs in many sectors. “In time, everyone will start doing the same. We are not the only ones. Maybe I was too direct when I shared this on Twitter.“, he added.

Duukan’s decision is not an isolated case. According to Challenger’s May report, Gray and Christmas, layoffs due to the use of AI are a growing trend that is likely to continue into the future.

In May, Insider reported on another case that sparked similar outrage, when the National Eating Disorders Association fired all help desk employees and replaced them with a chatbot. The chatbot was later disabled after providing harmful information about eating disorders.

The debate surrounding the use of AI in customer service is far from a consensus, but it’s undeniable that automation is becoming more prevalent in several business areas. The debate about the balance between efficiency, economy and impact on jobs will certainly remain in the spotlight.

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Source: Insider, Insider

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