2023-09-24 14:39:27
Press review, audiovisual monitoring, synthesis and translation of articles… These tasks constitute the core business of the Onclusive group, leader in the media monitoring sector and which counts The cross among its clients (alongside many companies and administrations).
However, the French subsidiary of the group has decided to automate these tasks to a large extent. The result is one of the first massive layoff plans due to artificial intelligence (AI) in France, according to Releasewho revealed the information in mid-September.
By next June, 217 positions must be eliminated. That is, more than half of the group’s French workforce (383 positions) and 15% of its overall workforce (1,500 positions). In detail, 209 employees will be made redundant, while eight vacant positions will not be replaced. Twenty-three new positions must also be created, in particular to control automatically generated press reviews.
“Become more agile and competitive”
The negotiation phase with the unions opens on Tuesday September 26, three weeks after the news was announced to employees on September 5. “We cannot cancel the social plan, but we will try to obtain the maximum for our colleagues”explains Sylvain, a CFE-CGC union delegate still stunned by the “brutality” of the process.
For the management of this company based in Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine), formerly managed by Kantar and bought in 2022 by the American investment fund STG, this is not a social plan but a “technological change project” (PMT). Objective : “Become more agile and more competitive” by adopting tools that « rationaliseront » tasks and “will improve efficiency and accuracy.” This was stated by CEO Rob Stone in his September 5 email to staff.
“Chatbots” in customer services
Isn’t banking on AI to replace such a large payroll a risky bet? It’s even a “big mistake”for Nicolas Sabouret, computer science professor at Paris-Saclay University. “We have known how to do automatic text synthesis for a good fifteen years, and recent progress in generative AI has enabled a leap in qualityhe admits. But these tools do not eliminate the need for a human to read the summary, understand its meaning and make a decision. The AI can do his work, but not do it for him! »
This specialist wishes to recall some disastrous precedents. “At the beginning of the 2000s, we were sold the chatbots (conversational agents, Editor’s note) as a wonderful improvement in customer services. They were supposed to provide automatic answers to the most frequently asked questions. As a result, there were so many errors that companies ended up backpedaling. »
French press review
Additional shock for staff representatives: according to them, the tool which “will replace” isn’t even ready yet. “We learned that tests were going to start this fall”reports Carole, a CFE-CGC elected official.
For her, the entire tradition of the French press review is under threat. “Our press reviews require significant human intervention because they are very structured, with sections, a hierarchy of subjects… Producing a single one can take up to half an hour, for our large clients. Nothing to do with other countries, where items are sent in bulk. »
Like others, Carole deplores the modernization of her business too late. In two years, it has in fact lost important calls for tenders and certain historical clients, such as the Ministry of Health. “As we were in the lead, we rested on our laurels! As a result, our competitors have modernized, lowered their costs, and become more attractive to customers. We could have modernized in a more gradual way, to avoid this large-scale social plan. »
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