Telus Uses AI to Change Call Center Agents' Accents

Telus has introduced AI technology through its Telus Digital division that modifies call center agents' accents in real time.

The system, which utilizes Tomato.ai's speech-to-speech tool, is applied mainly to the voices of overseas agents, with Telus stating that the purpose is to reduce 'accent-related friction.'

The introduction has sparked immediate social controversy.

• Labor groups: Calling it deceptive to customers, they are demanding mandatory disclosure of AI usage.
• Competitors: Rogers and Bell have made clear they have no plans to introduce similar technology.

Technically, the system uses a pipeline combining automatic speech recognition (ASR), speaker and accent conversion models, and a neural vocoder for low-latency voice conversion. In real-time customer service environments, latency, naturalness of speech, and robustness amid background noise are cited as the key technical challenges.