https://www.geekwire.com/2023/new-round-of-microsoft-job-cuts-hits-customer-service-support-and-sales-teams/
4 replies (most recent on top)
I agree 100% that AI can't replace the ACTUAL support engineers yet but there is no doubt that the first level of support engineers are basically reading off of a script and not doing any ACTUAL support. They take the symptoms of the issue, request logs, ask a tech lead or look up Microsoft articles and then tell the customer what they found. Half the time they don't even read customer comments about the issue.
MS is moving toward an AI support offering. Basically a chatbotPlus. Yes, for more $ you can talk to a human but it’ll all start with AI chatbot. So those guys will be gotten rid of and replaced with clippy….er…a….I mean chatbotPlus.
@szw…
You obviously don’t know what we do or how AI works to have such an ignorant understanding of this field and technology. AI has the intelligence of a parrot that responds in mimicry to the demands of any id--t speaking to it. Us engineers control every aspect of it. It’s tech MadLibs.
AI DOESN’T “understand”, it reads what we told it to read and fills in blanks we created with the inputs the user provided. And what non-tech people call “learning” is actually just another shelf of books in a library OR — like most quickly developed technologies, e.g., ChatGPT — an eraser, highlighter, and undo bu-ton all in one; all created by us.
AI has access, not intelligence. And that access is very limited in its deliverance because tech engineers made it, not linguists nor and professional in the field for which the AI is used. If a developer doesn’t know what it means, neither does the AI.
AI doesn’t take our jobs or anyone else’s and if a company makes RIF decisions based on that fallacy, the employees impacted we’re done a huge favor.
You really don’t need support anymore. You have AI providing that service. I always thought it was strange that engineers worked really hard to help improve a technology that they knew could possibly take over their own position with time.
“I really put in the hours to teach AI to debug this and that and now its at 90% accurate and tons faster on the analysis, a true win. Yea us!!! Wait, what’s that? You no longer need me in my position? That’s nuts, after all who else is going to debug…….oh, never mind”.
Well done guys, well done.