NEW YORK–The CEO of Citigroup said the company may eliminate tens of thousands of jobs in its call centers by using artificial intelligence.
Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat said such cuts would help it address the pressure the bank is under to cut costs. Citigroup annually spends $8 billion on technology, according to the Financial Times. The bank has approximately 209,000 employees worldwide.
“When you think of data, A.I., raw digitization of changing processes, we still have tens of thousands of people in call centers, and we know when we can digitize those processes we not only radically change or improve the customer experience, it costs less to provide,” Corbat told the Financial Times.
‘We Don’t Want People Frustrated’
According to the report, while the most common customer questions are easy for AI to handle, Citi has no plans to get rid of humans in its call centers altogether. “There’ll always be the kind of thing where you’ve actually got to have someone to help solve,” Corbat was quoted as saying. “We don’t want people frustrated in that.”
The Financial Times noted that two years ago, former Citi CEO Vikram Pandit said as many as one-third of the bank’s jobs could be replaced by A.I. within five years.
“Call center jobs seem to be increasingly at risk as voice recognition technology improves,” said the Financial Times. “A startup called Pindrop has helped call centers detect fraud and is now helping to protect voice-activated devices.”