A Silicon Valley startup has developed technology that can change call center agents’ accents in real time.
The company Sanas has told the BBC its technology could overcome accent-based prejudice and reduce racist abuse of employees.
However, some critics have called this a step in the wrong direction, saying that linguistic diversity should be celebrated.
News site SFGATE accused Sanas of making the agents, many of whom hail from the Global South, “sound white”.
Sanas, which has reportedly received $32 million in funding since June 2022, describes its technology as an accent translation tool.
A section on its website called “Demo” invites visitors to “listen to the magic” by playing a recording of someone with what appears to be a South Asian accent reading a call center script and then clicking a slider, which turns the speech into a slightly robotic-sounding American accent.
SFGATE accused the start-up of trying to “make call center workers sound white and American no matter what country they’re from.”
But Sharath Keshava Narayana, a co-founder of Sanas, dismissed the claim, telling the BBC’s Tech Tent program that all four founders are immigrants, making up 90% of the company’s employees.
He said the tool was partially inspired by the experience of a close friend of one of the other founders.
This friend, a third-year graduate student studying computer systems engineering at Stanford University in the US, had to return to Nicaragua to support his parents.
The student found a technical support position at a call center but was fired after three months because, Mr Narayana said, he was discriminated against because of his accent.
Mr. Narayana, himself a former call center agent, said that in his experience agents are abused or discriminated against for sounding off – abuse the company believes its technology can prevent.
But Ashleigh Ainsley, co-founder of Color in Tech, argued: “Should we just change people’s skin color because maybe some people don’t like it because they’re racist?
“We cannot move in this direction. We have to build tolerance.”
Mr Ainsley said he felt Sanas’ efforts were misguided, explaining: “The problem lies with people who think abuse is acceptable [call centre staff]not with the people who have the accent.”
He said instead more effort should be made to ensure linguistic diversity should be celebrated and racism should not be tolerated.
When asked if technology fueled racism, Narayana said, “Should the world be a better place? Absolutely yes. Should the world be more accepting of diversity and accents? Absolutely yes.
“But call centers have been around for 45 years, and every day an agent goes through this discrimination on every single call.”
The company said around 1,000 people are currently using the technology, mostly in the Philippines and India, and said it has been well received and has increased employee retention.
Many call center agents have reported that they are expected to speak with an American accent. Shalu Yadav, a Delhi-based BBC journalist who worked in three call centers to earn extra money as a student, said employers expect her to learn about American culture and use an American accent.
Ms. Yadav also spoke to two people with recent call center experience about Sanas’ technology.
Both thought the technology was a good idea. One spoke of “insults” they received from some Americans who called them and couldn’t understand their accent.
Another said: “It was always difficult to get the grammar right, the right pronunciation, the right jargon, the right slang. So it used to be an extra pressure to get the accent as well.”
However, this person felt that the industry had moved away from favoring American accents and that many companies were now expecting something more “neutral”.
Sanas said its purpose is to improve communication anywhere the accent might be an obstacle.
It said companies are testing the technology for internal use to facilitate communication between teams in Korea and the US or between teams in North and South India.
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