Google's 'Duplex' takes one step closer to help humans, may run call centres

SAN FRANCISCO: Google's voice-calling "Duplex" - which lets Artificial Intelligence (AI) mimic a human voice to make appointments and book tables through phone calls - may soon enter call centres assisting humans with customer queries. According to a report in The Information late on Thursday, an unnamed insurance company has shown interest in "Duplex" which could "handle simple and repetitive customer calls" before taking help from a human if the conversation gets complicated. Google, however, said in a statement that the company is not testing "Duplex" with any enterprise clients. "We're currently focused on consumer use cases for the'Duplex' technology and we aren't testing'Duplex' with any enterprise clients," a Google spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "'Duplex' is designed to operate in very specific use cases, and currently we're focused on testing with restaurant reservations, hair salon booking and holiday hours with a limited set of trusted testers," the company added.