While the white collar world awaits the impact of AI on their jobs, Bloomberg takes a look at what’s happening in the Philippines, where call center jobs once outsourced from the US are increasingly at risk of being outsourced to AI. So-called business process outsourcing (BPO) companies have been employing AI “copilots” to minimize tasks for call center workers, who represent the most private sector jobs in the country. Call center work can play to generative AI’s strengths, like its ability to summarize text and data and to spit out human(ish)-sounding responses.
One outsourcing advisory firm estimates that the Philippines could lose 300,000 BPO jobs in the next 5 years. That said, Bloomberg notes that, despite isolated layoffs, headcount in the industry is still on the rise.
