Dukaan shocks Twitter users after announcing 90% layoffs amid AI acceleration

Dukaan, a DIY platform that enables retailers to create their own online store without any programming knowledge, is the most recent company to reduce its human labour as a result of AI.

Suumit Shah, the CEO and creator of Dukaan, disclosed that 90 percent of the support workers were asked to leave amid the company’s decision to replace customer support executives with AI chatbot to address queries. On Monday, Shah noted in a thread on Twitter that the inclusion of Dukaan's own AI assistant reduced the resolution time from the previous 2 hours and 13 minutes to 3 minutes and 12 seconds.

“We had to layoff 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot,” Shah wrote, branding it a “tough” but “necessary decision.”

Shah’s take on the employee assistance

On being asked if the laid-off staff were provided with any help from the company, he called off the query saying further details on layoffs would be revealed in his upcoming LinkedIn post. He continued to say that LinkedIn is not a place for sympathy, but rather for profitability.

As expected, didn’t find any mention about the 90% staff that were laid off. What assistance were they provided?

— Arnob (@arnob1) July 10, 2023

Moreover, Shah published a comprehensive explanation of how the AI chatbot was created and how it has benefited Dukaan customers instead of responding to inquiries about the layoffs. He claimed that the corporation has long struggled with customer assistance and that the AI revolution presented a chance to address the problem. To create "Dukaan's own AI assistant, which would answer customer queries instantly and precisely, anywhere," he stated, was the aim.

Chatbot eases the query tickets

Additionally, Shah also claimed that Ojasvi Yadav, the lead data scientist for Dukaan, created a chatbot that could quickly and accurately respond to almost all typical inquiries regarding Dukaan. However, the bot had trouble responding to account-specific queries such as "why has my payout been pending for 2 days?" “A day later, he came up with another demo and this time bot answered both generic as well as account-specific questions, instantly,” wrote the CEO of Dukaan. Till now, over 1400 support requests have been certified as resolved by the chatbot Lina( customer support bot) but the CEO claims the current AI adoption as the beginning of its technological advancement.

A day later, he came up with the working demo of the chatbot and asked me to try

The bot was answering almost all common questions about Dukaan instantly & accurately.

However, account-specific questions like "why has my payout been pending for 2 days?", the answers fell short. — Suumit Shah (@suumitshah) July 10, 2023

Since then, the business has developed a platform that provides every user with a personal AI helper. "Consider having a personal AI assistant who understands your company through and out and is available 24/7 to respond to consumer questions. The CEO described this technology as allowing for user/account specific queries, not just generic queries.

Twitter users expressed anger

Nearing the end of his thread, Shah said that Dukaan is hiring for multiple roles in AI, product design and e-commerce. On the reaction of Shah’s tweets, the users on Twitter expressed their anger. Some called the recent decision of Shah as insensitive, given the CEO’s ignorance on fired employees' assistance. On the other hand, few others considered his action as shameless, toxic and non-chalant.

P.S. We're hiring for multiple roles at Dukaan.

If you're passionate about AI, E-commerce, Product Design and want to be part of the unfuckwithable team, you know how to reach out to us.

Note: Lionel Messi, we're keeping a spot open for you, just in case 😉

— Suumit Shah (@suumitshah) July 10, 2023

“I pity the people who work with you. Also happy for people who got fired because they no longer have to work with you,” wrote one person. “Shameless. Insensitive. Toxic. Non-chalant reply,” a Twitter user wrote.