Some call centre agents at a major Canadian telecommunications company say they fear for their jobs as artificial intelligence takes on an increasing presence in their workplace.
A Telus employee in B.C. says a company requirement to use an AI “co-pilot” on phone calls, part of a suite of AI tools Telus uses internally, has her concerned she’s training a system that will eventually take her job.
“We’re worried [about] what’s going to happen next,” said the employee, who has worked for Telus for more than a decade.
“Will I have a job to feed my family tomorrow?”
CBC News obtained an email Telus sent to employees in January stating agents are “expected to use” a specific AI co-pilot on “100% of retention calls.”
The employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing her job, explained that human agents type in what customers are asking for so the co-pilot can walk them through what to do and suggest offers to pitch the customer — a process that goes back and forth throughout each call.
When the co-pilot gives incorrect information, she says, the human agent is required to submit feedback that is then used to “train” the co-pilot to find the right information in the future.
She says she doesn’t have proof that the co-pilots are being trained to replace human call centre agents, but the suspicion is shared by many of her co-workers.
“We are very concerned these jobs are being taken away from us in the long run,” she said.
Michael Phillips, president of Local Steelworkers 1944, which represents 3,200 Telus workers as well as other telecom employees across Canada, said he frequently hears concerns from employees who say the AI co-pilots have made them feel insecure about their jobs.
“That’s the insidious worry about AI, is that it seems like a tool that you use on your job until the tool takes over your job,” he said.
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The Canadian Telecommunications Workers’ Alliance brought its AI concerns to the House of Commons standing committee on industry and technology on April 30, calling for government restrictions on the use of AI in the sector. It cited, in part, a separate tool used by Telus to mask the accents of call centre agents.
Roch Leblanc, telecommunications sector director for Unifor, told the committee roughly 20,000 jobs in the telecommunications sector had been lost over the past 10 to 15 years due to automation and offshoring.
Leblanc and Phillips both say AI is being used to monitor telecom workers in ways such as tracking their movements and measuring the time spent on tasks.
Concerns about AI agents taking jobs has been growing globally as major tech companies invest heavily in the technology.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last year that human customer support jobs will be completely taken over by AI and said he was confident that call centre jobs will be the first to go.
Whether that’s realistic has been a subject of debate.
Telus touts its Fuel iX Agent Assist and Agent Trainer co-pilots as ways to help human agents do their jobs, not replace them.
Spokesperson Richard Gilhooley said in an emailed statement to CBC News that the co-pilots provide “team members with the precise information they need in real-time so they can resolve issues more quickly.”
“We believe AI, when used responsibly, can augment — not replace — human capabilities and help deliver better outcomes for our customers and communities,” he said.
The company announced the launch of its Fuel iX co-pilot in July 2024, calling it a “pioneering employee AI assistant.”
“These tools are not self-training, and any feedback our team members provide about their experience with them is addressed by another human,” Gilhooley added in his email.
In January, Telus offered voluntary severance packages to hundreds of employees across Canada. The Vancouver-based company told the Canadian Press at the time that the offers were part of a buyout program that started last year, “fuelled by rapid transformation in our industry and the growing customer demand for self-serve solutions.”
In the U.S., internal memos reported by Reuters in April revealed tech giant Meta is installing new tracking software on its employees’ computers to capture mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes, to help develop AI agents that can mimic their actions and learn to perform their tasks. “This is where all Meta employees can help our models get better simply by doing their daily work,” a memo said.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, meanwhile, signalled to investors at Google’s annual cloud conference last month that AI agents will be at the core of its strategy to monetize AI as the models become more sophisticated.
Some estimates say the market for autonomous AI agents is projected to grow from $10.4 billion Cdn in 2025 to more than $190 billion Cdn by 2033, an 18-fold increase.
The Telus employee who spoke with CBC News says she’s feeling frustration, anger and anxiety about the encroachment of AI in her workplace.
She says the co-pilots have replaced a human-staffed help desk for employees and notes that AI bots are already handling support chats and taking initial customer calls to Telus before determining whether the calls need to advance to a human.
She says an AI system also listens in on their calls and produces detailed reports on employee performance, which are relayed to managers.
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Phillips says workers have “a lot of anxiety” knowing “that a robot is essentially monitoring every word and reporting on you to your boss, with potential consequences.”
Gilhooley says recording of call centre phone calls “is done strictly in accordance with applicable privacy legislation.”
Valerio De Stefano, a professor and Canada Research Chair in Innovation Law and Society at York University, says the law is murky around AI concerns in the workplace, including AI monitoring and surveillance.
Unlike in Europe, he says Canadians working for private companies don’t have clear legal protections.
“This is a problem in Canada,” he said. “We are lagging behind compared to other jurisdictions where employees will be much more protected.”
