World’s largest call center using AI to ‘neutralize’ Indian employees’ accents

Teleperformance SE, the largest call center operator on the planet, has come up with a way to mask the fact it operates in India for customers calling for support with their latest iPhone or Galaxy device.

In a new report from Bloomberg, Teleperformance shared that it invested $13 million in Sanas, an AI startup. Sanas has created technology that focuses on “reducing accent-based discrimination.” As Teleperformance puts it, the technology can “neutralize” accents.

“When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard to hear, to understand,” Teleperformance Deputy Chief Executive Officer Thomas Mackenbrock told Bloomberg in an interview. Mackenbrock said that the AI technology can “neutralize the accent of the Indian speaker with zero latency.”

Sanas’ accent-neutralizing technology currently works on Indian and Filipino accents. The company says that it’s working on deploying it for other accents, such as those found in Latin America.

The AI startup also provides a background noise removal feature in order to further mask any sort of ambient noise emanating from the call center employees’ location that may give away where they are based.

Teleperformance said that it’s also using AI tools for more common AI tasks, such as transcribing calls and coaching new employees. The company announced it would invest a further $104 million in AI during an investor call.