{"slug": "call-centres-using-ai-to-whiten-indian-accents-2025", "title": "Call centres using AI to 'whiten' Indian accents (2025)", "summary": "Teleperformance, the world's largest call centre company, is using real-time AI software from Sanas to neutralize Indian accents for Western customers, aiming to increase human empathy and reduce miscommunication. The French company, which employs 90,000 people in India, has invested $13m (£10m) in Sanas and will use its calls to train the accent software. Teleperformance's Thomas Mackenbrock said the technology, already used by Walmart and UPS, helps build closer relationships between workers and customers.", "body_md": "The world's biggest call centre company is using artificial intelligence to \"neutralise\" Indian accents for Western customers.\n\nTeleperformance said it was applying real-time AI software on phone calls in order to increase \"human empathy\" between two people on the phone.\n\nThe French company's customers in the UK include parts of the Government, the NHS, Vodafone and eBay.\n\nTeleperformance has 90,000 employees in India and tens of thousands more in other countries.\n\nIt is using software from Sanas, an American company that says the system helps \"build a more understanding world\" and [reduces miscommunication](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/15/listen-can-you-tell-an-ai-voice-from-a-real-human/).\n\nThe company's website says it makes call centre workers more productive and means customer service calls [are resolved more quickly](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/17/ai-can-reveal-personality-from-voice-daily-t-hosts/). The company also says it means call centre workers are less likely to be abused and customers are less likely to demand to speak to a supervisor.\n\nIt is already used by companies including Walmart and UPS.\n\n\"It's a technology that allows [us] to neutralise accents in real time without any data storage,\" Teleperformance's Thomas Mackenbrock told investors on Thursday.\n\n\"You have obviously the issue we talked about human connection, human empathy. We have first implemented Sanas with clients in India. And sometimes, there is a difficulty people in India talking and vice versa with clients from the US.\"\n\nHe said it would mean \"closer and more intimate relationships\" between workers and customers.\n\nThe company said it had [introduced the technology in India](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/15/ai-tool-speak-another-language-without-learning-a-word/) and would expand to other countries.\n\nDemos of Sanas's technology show Indian accents acquiring a distinctively American twang, as well as reducing background noise.\n\nSanas has been criticised in the past for making people's voices \"sound whiter\". The company says that call centre workers like the technology and it leads to more opportunities in countries such as India and The Philippines.\n\nTeleperformance has taken a stake in the US company through a $13m (£10m) investment and a deal that will see Teleperformance's calls used to train the company's accent software.\n\nCall centre companies have been under potential pressure from AI owing to the rise of chatbots that can handle many customer queries automatically.\n\nMr Mackenbrock said: \"In a world that is ubiquitous with AI, the element of the human ... will be also equally important because it's about building human connection and having this element of human empathy, connectivity will be something that will be equally valuable in the future.\"\n\nMr Mackenbrock told Bloomberg that the company was not disclosing which customers were using the AI tool.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/call-centres-using-ai-to-whiten-indian-accents-2025", "canonical_source": "https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/call-centres-using-ai-whiten-090000847.html", "published_at": "2026-08-11 03:24:09+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-11 03:41:00.616200+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Teleperformance", "Sanas", "Thomas Mackenbrock", "Walmart", "UPS", "NHS", "Vodafone", "eBay"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/call-centres-using-ai-to-whiten-indian-accents-2025", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/call-centres-using-ai-to-whiten-indian-accents-2025.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/call-centres-using-ai-to-whiten-indian-accents-2025.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/call-centres-using-ai-to-whiten-indian-accents-2025.jsonld"}}