The Canadian Telecommunications Workers Alliance (CTWA) said that masking the accents of workers in overseas call centres using AI tools keeps customers from realizing that companies they’re doing business with aren’t hiring Canadians. (The Logic)

Talking point: Telus advertises “AI-powered speech enhancement” as a service from its Telus Digital subsidiary, saying it can cut background noise in phone calls, boost agents’ confidence and improve clarity, all leading to faster and more satisfactory results. Telus didn’t immediately reply to an inquiry from The Logic about whether it uses such a tool itself. Rogers and Bell told The Globe and Mail that they don’t use technology to change call centre agents’ voices. Roch Leblanc, the telecom-sector director for Unifor (one of the CTWA’s member unions), said in parliamentary testimony that offshoring and automation have cost about 20,000 telecom jobs over the past 10 to 15 years.