AI-related job losses only seem to be accelerating as the underlying technology behind them matures.
German insurance group Allianz plans to cut 1,800 jobs in its travel insurance division as AI replaces manual processes, Reuters reports. Most of these job losses will be in the company’s call centers. The job losses will take place over the next 12-18 months.
Allianz Partners employs 22,600 people, of which roughly 14,000 handle customer inquiries and claims by phone. 1,800 job cuts in this division would mean an 8% job loss at a company level, and a 12% trimming of its customer service division.
Allianz Partners said in a statement that it is actively examining how technological change will affect all employees, which could “also impact roles that are currently heavily reliant on manual processes”. A company spokesperson said that confidential talks with the works councils were currently taking place.
Call center and customer support roles are some of the most impacted by AI. In March last year, Klarna had said that it had developed an AI chatbot that was doing the work of 700 human employees. More recently, Salesforce had laid off 4,000 customer support employees and had set up AI systems to do their jobs.
AI systems are especially adept at following set procedures and speaking with customers. AI is being used heavily in chat systems, and is often used to handle primary queries. In case there are queries that the chatbot can’t answer, customers are able to escalate to human employees. AI systems are also getting increasingly good at voice calls, so AI is slowly taking over some calling functions as well. And with AI continuing to progress rapidly across different modalities, customer support roles seem particularly vulnerable to an AI-led disruption.