The CEO of an e-commerce platform is facing severe backlash for a Twitter thread announcing the layoff of 90% of the company’s customer support staff in favor of an AI chatbot. Sumit Shah, the 31-year-old CEO of Dukaan, shared the news, stating that the chatbot outperformed the human staff by responding to customer queries in under two minutes compared to over two hours.
The decision to replace the team resulted in an 85% reduction in customer support costs. However, the announcement has garnered criticism from Twitter and Reddit users who express concerns about the future of human interaction in customer support.
“Over time, everybody will start doing this. It’s not just us. Maybe I’m just too straightforward to have put it on Twitter,” Shah added.
Meanwhile, Reddit user u/kakapoopoopeepeeshir commented in a thread on Tuesday: “I’m terrified of the future where we will never speak to a human again in customer support which means we will never get a problem solved, you’ll just be passed around between bots.”
While some question the necessity and effectiveness of relying solely on AI, others worry about the consequences of eliminating human support altogether.
“We had to layoff 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely,” Shah wrote in a thread that’s been viewed over 1.5 million times since being posted.
