Teleperformance uses AI to ‘neutralize’ Indian accents among staff

Teleperformance, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims will make them more understandable.

The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancellation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. Teleperformance provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple, ByteDance’s TikTok and Samsung Electronics.

"When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard to hear, to understand,” Deputy-CEO Thomas Mackenbrock said in an interview with Bloomberg. The technology can "neutralize the accent of the Indian speaker with zero latency,” he said. This "creates more intimacy, increases the customer satisfaction, and reduces the average handling time: it is a win-win for both parties.”