Japanese technology company SoftBank Corp. announced that it has developed AI-powered voice-changing technology to guard call center employees from customer harassment.
Customer harassment has increased within the Japanese service sector, with call center employees increasingly becoming the goal of indignant callers.
The “emotion cancelling” project called SoftVoice was launched three years ago by SoftBank worker Toshiyuki Nakatani after he saw a television show about customer harassment.
The system, which is scheduled to launch next yr, detects when a caller is indignant and calms their voice without changing their words.
The goal of the system is to cut back the psychological stress on call center agents while they work to resolve the caller's problem.
SoftVoice removes indignant emotions from a caller's voice but keeps the words. Source: SoftBank
Pitch and emphasis are softened without losing the intent behind the decision. The intimidating bass tone of a person's voice is raised to a better pitch to sound softer, while a lady's high-pitched voice is lowered to a lower tone to sound less resonant.
To make sure that the operator recognizes when the caller is indignant and might react accordingly, the developers let barely enough emotion shine through.
The AI was trained using 10,000 voice samples from ten female and male actors who were hired to perform greater than 100 lines, including shouting and indignant, accusatory tones.
Artificial intelligence is already replacing human call center employees. But are they as much as the challenge of navigating the social intricacies of Japanese culture?
Nakatani explained: “AI is sweet at handling complaints and might achieve this for hours, but indignant customers need a human to apologize to them.”
Nakatani said he hopes his AI-powered voice-changing system will “grow to be a mental shield that forestalls operators from overexerting their nerves.”
If you’re employed in a call center and think that is an incredible idea, you could have to attend some time before trying it out, because the system currently only works in Japanese.
