MONTEGO BAY, St James — Two of Jamaica’s leading business process outsourcing (BPO) executives have dismissed claims by the parliamentary Opposition that artificial intelligence (AI) poses an existential threat to the sector, citing that the industry’s greatest challenge is competitiveness, not technology.

Their comments follow warnings from Opposition spokesman on productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness Peter Bunting, who told the House of Representatives on Wednesday that AI threatens the future of the sector, which employs approximately 50,000 Jamaicans. Bunting said one of the country’s largest operators had reportedly cut 40 per cent of its workforce as business became more automated.

However, president of the Global Services Association of Jamaica (GSAJ) and managing director of national credit adjusters Jamaica, Wayne Sinclair, cautioned against attributing job losses to AI.

While acknowledging that the sector is experiencing contraction and that some companies have shifted operations out of Jamaica, Sinclair argued that the real issue is competitiveness. He cited rising security, transportation, and electricity costs and also highlighted concerns about workforce readiness.

“The labour pool is increasingly coming to the marketplace with lower and lower qualification standards,” Sinclair told the Jamaica Observer, noting that competitors such as India and the Philippines often supply college graduates at significantly lower wage rates.

“So get off the artificial intelligence doomsday bandwagon for a little bit and try to focus a little bit more on the real issues facing our industry. And that is just the overall competitiveness of the sector, cost of doing business, and other issues related to the challenges that we have with our workforce,” the GSAJ head said.

His views were echoed by ITEL Chief Executive Officer Yoni Epstein, who said politicians have repeatedly warned about AI destroying jobs without evidence to support those claims.

“It is genuinely striking that for three straight years now our politicians — on both sides — have been sounding the alarm about AI wiping out Jamaica’s BPO sector, and yet not a single Jamaican BPO job has actually been lost to AI. Not one that I can point to,” Epstein said.

Instead, he argued, Jamaica has been losing contracts and jobs to countries that offer lower costs and stronger operational performance.

“We have been losing work to the Philippines, India, South Africa, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala — destinations that consistently deliver better cost structures, stronger operational efficiency, and frankly, better service,” Epstein stressed.

EPSTEIN… said politicians have repeatedly warned about AI destroying jobs without evidence to support those claims.

Meanwhile, Sinclair also argued that Jamaica needs to do a better job at marketing.

“As a country, we’re really not doing anything to promote our sector,” he chided, adding that Jamaica has become “out of sight” in the global marketplace.

Epstein said the industry’s challenges predate the emergence of AI.

“Our problems are structural: power costs, telecoms costs, workforce readiness, the absence of a coherent industrial policy for the sector, our failure to move up the value chain into higher-margin work, a chronic inability to differentiate on anything other than English-language proficiency, which is no longer enough,” he underscored.

Far from being a threat, he described AI as a potential solution.

“AI, properly understood, is not what is going to kill us; AI is actually the single best lever we have to claw back competitiveness,” Epstein said.

“The honest conversation Parliament should be having is not how do we protect our people from AI, it is why are we still losing work to countries that figured out cost, quality, and a balanced legal framework before AI was even a factor, and how do we use AI to leapfrog them,” he added.

Sinclair argued that his own company is using AI to improve productivity rather than eliminate jobs.

“We’re not losing jobs to AI. We’re only enhancing the capacity of our workers to do more with less,” he said.

He said an AI application currently being evaluated could enable employees to perform “60 per cent more” work, allowing the company to service more debt collection portfolios and expand operations.