Speaking to Big Technology, Kurian pushed back against fears that AI will cause mass layoffs.

“I think there is definitely a middle ground and I think partly it’s because people are reacting to hype on one end and also not thinking rationally on the other end,” he said.

Instead of replacing staff, the AI tools are being used to deal with small, routine tasks that were often ignored, allowing employees to focus on more complex work. 

As a result, Kurian said this has helped businesses connect with customers in new ways and improve service quality.

Kurian cited Google’s Customer Engagement Suite, a collection of AI-driven customer service tools, which were launched last year, as an example of this action.

Although some early clients were concerned that automation might cause layoffs, Kurian claims almost none of its clients have let anyone go.

“When we first introduced it, people said, ‘Does that mean we don’t need any customer service agents anymore?’ You know, the reality is, in almost all our clients, they have not let anybody go, “ he said

“So, what is the value of this Customer Engagement Suite? It answers questions that many people never bothered to call the company about because they thought, ‘Hey, I have to wait forever on the phone. The company doesn’t understand my native language, so I’m afraid to call because they don’t have someone who speaks it.’ It’s helping answer a lot of questions that people could never solve before and therefore never bothered to ask.

“Sometimes, when technology vendors introduce something new, people jump to conclusions and predict outcomes that may or may not be true,” he notes.

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