Dukaan says customer support costs reduced by 85% while resolution time went down from over two hours to three minutes
New Delhi: E-commerce startup Dukaan has replaced 90% of its customer support team with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, founder and CEO Sumit Shah informed on Tuesday.
Attributing the decision to prioritizing profitability, he said customer support costs reduced by 85% while resolution time went down from over two hours to three minutes.
“We had to lay off 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely,” Shah tweeted.
Several Twitter users criticized the tweet, deeming it insensitive.
“Given the state of economy, startups are prioritizing “profitability” over striving to become “unicorns”, and so are we,” Shah added.
He explained in detail about Lina, the AI assistant which he claimed, replaces generic and delayed responses, as well as limited availability of resources and poor communication. After 12 tweets, Shah said that the company is hiring for multiple roles.
The announcement comes after Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar deemed any concerns about AI threatening jobs as “nonsense”.
