Why Teleperformance Uses AI Accent Translation Tool to Neutralize Indian Accents in Call Center Agents

AI is now having its ‘rubber-meeting-the-road moment,’ and its impact is far-reaching, radically transforming ways of working. Going by a recent Bloomberg report, Teleperformance, a global leader in digital business services that aims to blend advanced technology with human empathy to enhance customer care, has deployed AI to alter the accents of its Indian call center agents in real-time. This move aims to improve customer interactions, making them more relatable.

“When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard to hear, to understand. The technology can neutralize the accent of the Indian speaker with zero latency. This creates more intimacy, increases customer satisfaction, and reduces the average handling time: it is a win-win for both parties,” stated Deputy Chief Executive Officer Thomas Mackenbrock to Bloomberg.

Accent Translation Tool

The company serves clients such as Apple Inc., TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd., and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. The accent translation tool was developed by Palo Alto-based startup Sanas, which adjusts speech patterns to make agents’ accents more neutral without causing noticeable delays in conversation.

Teleperformance believes that this innovation will improve customer satisfaction and shorten call durations. While using AI to modify human accents might sound awkward, today, we live in an age where most customer interactions are shifting to Conversational AI. Making it more human and universal, leading to higher customer satisfaction outcomes.

Skeptics may argue that developments like this bring back memories of cultural homogenization, similar to what Kipling wrote in the poem White Man’s Burden, which essentially referred to Western intervention as a civilizing mission. But, coming to the world we live right now, where operational efficiencies are rooted in tangible business outcomes, this is the new reality businesses and the workforce must gear up for and blend with AI-driven technology evolutions.