When Jamaica’s BPO sector lost another 5,000 jobs over the past year, most people blamed artificial intelligence. But was that really the cause?
As we all know, AI can now answer customer questions, summarize calls, generate emails and even sound remarkably human.
Those are things that thousands of Caribbean people get paid to do at call centers for major global corporations.
So naturally, we’re gonna lose jobs, right?
But according to itel Founder and CEO Yoni Epstein, AI is not the reason for Jamaica’s job losses.
“Jamaica’s losing business due to the lack of productivity, not due to the advent of technology.”
Yoni Epstein
Epstein argues Jamaica is losing business because it has become less competitive.
He says companies aren’t comparing Jamaica with the call centre down the road.
They’re comparing us with Costa Rica, Colombia, South Africa, the Philippines and dozens of other countries competing for the same outsourcing contracts.
According to him, AI isn’t replacing Jamaica.
Other countries are simply using AI to become more productive while Jamaica struggles with efficiency, marketing and higher operating costs.
That doesn’t mean AI isn’t changing the industry.
Epstein believes some support and administrative roles will become leaner, but he says the frontline customer-service jobs aren’t disappearing anytime soon.
Instead, they’ll increasingly be supported by AI tools that help workers solve problems faster.
“I see more of the the support non-billable roles probably not being there, but still the frontline roles still being very prevalent, but using AI to make yourselves more competitive, you know, provide a better product and service to the end user. So, you know, I’m as an operator, as a president of the association, you know, I’m still very gung-ho on the success of this industry.”
Yoni Epstein
Whether his optimism is justified remains to be seen.
The reality is that thousands of Jamaicans have already lost their jobs, and AI will almost certainly continue changing the way customer service is delivered.
And that’s the bottom line.
What do you think? Is AI the biggest threat to Jamaica’s BPO industry, or do we need to focus more on improving productivity and competitiveness?
