AI Chatbot “Lina” Replaces 90 Percent Customer Support Staff At Dukaan: ChatGPT, Bard Will Take Away Some Jobs

An Indian startup has replaced over 90 percent of its staff in a single department with a Generative AI. The company has also run benchmarks analyzing customer resolution and satisfaction offered by the chatbot, which offers 24x7x365 performance.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Union Minister of State for Electronics, Information, and Technology, had recently dismissed concerns about AI taking away jobs in India. He ridiculed the notion as “nonsense” and “bakwaas”. However, AI can and has already started taking away jobs. Let’s take a look at the latest developments to understand just how accurate the scenario is.

Dukaan Experiences Better Response Time And Resolutions With AI Chatbot

Bengaluru-based startup Dukaan has replaced 90 percent of its support team with a Generative AI. Dukaan founder Suumit Shah claims the company’s AI chatbot has not only helped reduce the resolution time but also reduced customer support costs by 85 percent.

We had to layoff 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot.

Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

The results?

Time to first response went from 1m 44s to INSTANT!
Resolution time went from 2h 13m to 3m 12s
Customer support costs reduced by ~85%

Here’s how’s we did it 🧵

— Suumit Shah (@suumitshah) July 10, 2023

Tweeting about the necessity of AI today, he said that the time to first response went from 1 minute & 44 seconds to “INSTANT!” and resolution time went from 2 hours and 13 minutes to 3 minutes and 12 seconds.

“Given the state of the economy, startups are prioritizing “profitability” over striving to become “unicorns,” and so are we. Customer Support had been a struggle for us since long & fixing it felt like an opportunity to me,” Suumit added.

Is AI Taking Away Jobs And Will It Threaten The Indian Workforce?

Dukaan has deployed “Lina”, a Generative AI chatbot reportedly based on ChatGPT. The exact version isn’t known. However, OpenAI has been offering the latest ChatGPT-4 to individuals as well as enterprises via paid subscription.

In addition to Lina, Suumit also launched an “AI as a Service” platform called “Bot9”. He assures the platform will allow businesses to leverage AI chatbots, which understand their products in order to answer customer queries. The Bot9 API too uses chatGPT as its source and is available for $69 per month on the website.

Lina can answer account-specific as well as general queries about Dukaan’s features and workings. Meanwhile, Bot9 too can function as support staff that mostly handles customer questions.

Needless to say, AI can, will, and is taking away jobs. While admitting the same, Suumit added that his intention was not to replace humans with AI. Instead, the company is leveraging AI technology to optimize its operations, specifically in customer support.

AI chatbots have the ability to source information from multiple areas and present them as answers to queries raised by humans. Hence, at present, they are well suited for customer service jobs that answer mundane and repetitive questions without getting bored or tired.

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published: Thursday, July 13, 2023, 11:14 [IST]