BPOs to Hire Fewer People as Job Automation Picks Up

With AI & GenAI Becoming Mainstream, Businesses Are Restructuring Operations

- AVIK DAS

Business process management (BPM) (earlier BPO) companies are set to hire fewer people as automation and artificial intelligence (AI) take over routine tasks.

With AI and generative AI (GenAI) becoming mainstream, businesses are restructuring operations, reducing the need for human intervention in basic processes.

Industry executives, associations and even venture capital (VC) firms are yet to determine how much those numbers will come down as companies adopt a wait-and-watch approach and the impact of AI and GenAI unravels over time.

Still, all agree that industry is likely to be impacted the most by new-age technologies.

The Indian technology sector, which includes IT services companies, BPM, and hardware, employs about 5.4 million people, the largest in the organised sector.

BPM firm Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) has observed that AI agents have not replaced humans at the base level but reduced the need for team leaders.