CEO Replaces 90% Of Customer Support Staff With AI Chatbot, Internet Angry

Founder and CEO of e-commerce firm Dukaan, Suumit Shah, is facing the anger of social media users for a Twitter post on Tuesday in which he announced that his company has replaced 90% of its customer care crew with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.

As the post began to gain traction, users slammed him for making such a harsh decision that would have an impact on many employees' lives.

The CEO tweeted a justification of his decision and added that this challenging move was done to achieve profitability. He further asserted that response times decreased from more than two hours to three minutes and that costs associated with customer support were reduced by 85%.

"We had to lay off 90 percent of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely," Shah tweeted.

"Given the state of the economy, startups are prioritising "profitability" over striving to become "unicorns", and so are we," Shah added.

But social media users were not impressed by his explanation.

"This is extremely disrespectful towards all the people who were laid off. And a founder is boasting about layoffs along with a new feature in the same thread? This leaves such a bad taste for everyone who knows Dukaan and has followed its journey," tweeted a user.

Criticising the manner of the announcement of this layoff, another Twitter user wrote, "He is talking about laying off people with the same glee that a kid has after getting a double scoop of ice cream."

"What about AI's replacing businesses itself? We will soon live in the era of talking with machines only and living for machines. Human life has become machines, and now machines will be life itself soon by ordering us. Pity the employees and wish them a great future," wrote another user.

"How can anyone think AI chatbots give better responses?" Quick response vs. Quality response Profitability will be short-lived. No brand loyalty will be there," commented a third user.

When asked by a Twitter user about the assistance provided to the laid-off staff, Mr Shah said, "As expected, 'someone' will get offended on behalf of 'someone else', so I had this reply ready: Assistance ke bare mein jab Linkedin pe post karunga tab dekh lena mere dost, yahaan Twitter pe log "profitability" dekhte hai "sympathy" nahi (I will post about this on LinkedIn, here on Twitter people only look for "profitability" and not "sympathy")."

"Laying off is never a pleasant experience, why is the need to proclaim and be proud about it," a Twitter user wrote.