This call center AI system will match you with your perfect customer service rep

Artificial intelligence is being used to improve the efficiency of online customer service in all kinds of ways, from chatbots to auto-replies, but a new startup is aiming to use it in call centers too.

Unfortunately, the aim of the technology appears to be to improve sales rather than smooth over disputes. Afiniti International Holdings believe that caller experiences could be improved by matching them to the right customer service assistant and it’s using AI to make this happen. 

When someone gets in touch with a call center through the Afiniti technology, the AI system builds a profile of them, combining a history of their purchase and contact history with any public information from their social media profiles. 

Data scouring

It then rounds out the profile with information gathered from the census archives of the caller’s area. As the system will already have information on its associates, it will attempt to match an associate with callers similar to those they’ve successfully helped and sold to in the past.

As everything is done in the background by the AI system, Afiniti says the customer service assistant won’t have access to any of the personal information gathered about the caller and neither will they know exactly why they’ve been matched to the person they have. 

As you’d expect, this has raised some concerns with regards to customer privacy. According to The Wall Street Journal, Afiniti has stated that it only pulls its data from databases where information is legitimately available for purchase, such as credit firms like Experian, and will only use data from social media profiles that’s been made public by the users themselves.

However, a digital marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania told the WSJ that the use of the technology was a "process of discrimination" and that companies bringing together data of which we have no knowledge could "discriminate against us in a prejudicial sense or a positive sense, depending on who we are."

Afiniti has already installed the technology in 150 call centers for a variety of clients. So if you ever make a customer service call and find yourself talking to a sales associate with whom you have an uncanny connection, maybe consider it wasn’t fate that brought you together.

Emma Boyle

Emma Boyle is TechRadar’s ex-Gaming Editor, and is now a content developer and freelance journalist. She has written for magazines and websites including T3, Stuff and The Independent. Emma currently works as a Content Developer in Edinburgh.

Latest in Tech
Josie and Matt laughing in front of the Google Pixel 9a
TechRadar Podcast: Is the Pixel 9a ugly? Has Apple ruined the smartwatch market? And is Samsung's One UI in trouble?
A Lego Pikachu tail next to a Pebble OS watch and a screenshot of Assassin's Creed Shadow
ICYMI: the week's 7 biggest tech stories from LG's excellent new OLED TV to our Assassin's Creed Shadow review
A triptych image of the Meridian Ellipse, LG C5 and Xiaomi 15.
5 amazing tech reviews of the week: LG's latest OLED TV is the best you can buy and Xiaomi's seriously powerful new phone
Beats Studio Pro Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones in Black and Gold on yellow background with big savings text
The best Beats headphones you can buy drop to $169.99 at Best Buy's Tech Fest sale
Ray-Ban smart glasses with the Cpperni logo, an LED array, and a MacBook Air with M4 next to ecah other.
ICYMI: the week's 7 biggest tech stories from Twitter's massive outage to iRobot's impressive new Roombas
A triptych image featuring the Sennheiser HD 505, Apple iPad Air 11-inch (2025), and Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4).
5 unmissable tech reviews of the week: why the MacBook Air (M4) should be your next laptop and the best sounding OLED TV ever
Latest in News
Microsoft Surface Laptop and Surface Pro devices on a table.
Hate Windows 11’s search? Microsoft is fixing it with AI, and that almost makes me want to buy a Copilot+ PC
Oura Ring 4
Activity tracking on Oura Ring is about to get a whole lot better, but I've got bad news about your step count
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2
Cleaned your Pixel Buds Pro 2 recently? If not, you might be getting worse sound
Google Maps on a phone being held in someone's hand
Google Maps is getting two key upgrades, for easier route planning and quicker access to Gemini AI
URL phishing
HaveIBeenPwned owner suffers phishing attack that stole his Mailchimp mailing list
Gemini on a smartphone.
Gemini 2.5 is now available for Advanced users and it seriously improves Google’s AI reasoning