"We had to layoff 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely," Shah wrote in a thread that's been viewed over 1.5 million times since being posted. In the thread, Shah wrote that an AI chatbot took less than two minutes to respond to customer queries, while his human support staff took over two hours.
Replacing most of his customer support team with a chatbot reduced customer support costs by around 85%, he wrote. Shah told Insider the layoffs occurred in September 2022 and resulted in Duukan — which currently employs 60 people — letting go of 23 of the 26 members of its customer support team. In a conversation on Wednesday, Shah said his"monthly budget" for customer support is now $100. Insider could not independently verify these figures.
But Twitter and Reddit users aren't buying the explanation. As of press time, more than 600 Twitter users had quoted his tweet, with the vast majority being critical of Shah and Duukan."Make no mistake. The support team was laid off here because business is failing and funding is dry. Not because of AI."