USA Today - 26.08.2019

Susan Tompor

Columnist

USA TODAY

Ride out

Wall

Street’s

roller

coaster

Prudence, not panic,

can quell recession fears

See RECESSION, Page 2B

Watching a one-day, 800-point
bloodbath on Wall Street gives even
the most sophisticated investor reason
to come unhinged for a little while.
Is a recession around the corner? Or
a year or more away? Just how far can
the stock market – which has been
roaring along for much of the summer

• tumble?
  The Dow Jones industrial average
  closed at a record high of 27,359.
  points on July 15 – a 17.3% year-to-date
  gain.
  By Aug. 14, the day of the 800-point
  drop, the Dow had fallen to 25,479.
  points, representing a 6.8% decline in
  a month. The Dow recovered that loss,
  but President Donald Trump’s trade
  war rhetoric Friday sent the blue-chip
  index down 623 points, or 2.4%, to
  25,629.

Who’s got the stomach for that?
It’s time to regain your financial
footing, step back and decide what
moves make sense if you’re worried
about the next recession. Here are
questions to consider:

What am I doing with my
money now?

Take a close look at how you’re in-
vesting your money already. You might
not realize the level of risk you are tak-
ing.
If you’re prone to panic, pay atten-
tion to this one.
Say you are in your 30s and you took
a new job in the past few years.
About 35% of employers now auto-
matically enroll a new employee in the
company’s 401(k) plan, according to
Fidelity Investments. That process

RICHARD DREW/AP

USA TODAY z MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2019 z SECTION B

Why you shouldn’t fret about oil

Ken Fisher explains why swings are a false fear. 2B

Start saving for the holidays

August is the perfect time to create a budget. 3B

Around the nation

News from every state. 4B

IN MONEY

STATES

GETTY IMAGES

Sponsored by

©

SOURCE Nationwide Retirement Institute’s 5th
Annual Consumer Survey of 1,013 adults age 50
or older, conducted Jan. 5-Feb. 5, 2018.

GEORGE PETRAS, DAVID ANESTA/USA TODAY

with a financial

advisor say they

would switch to

one who can help

them maximize

Social Security

benefits.

of future retirees

72%

“You are speaking faster than usu-

al,” reads an alert on a computer

screen. The call center agent on the

phone with a customer can see a

speedometer icon.

The conversation with the custom-

er continues, as does the computer

feedback. “Think about how the cus-

tomer is feeling. Try to relate,” the arti-

ficial intelligence-powered tool inter-

jects. The agent receivesother notifi-

cations, from “extended silence” to

“empathy cue,” which suggests the

worker is lacking empathy.

For about 1,700 agents at the call

center of Humana Pharmacy, the soft-

ware called Cogito is becoming part of

their work lives. It listens to most of

their phone calls with customers na-

tionwide and guides the agents on how

to better communicate by analyzing

vocal cues in conversations such as

pitch, tone and rhythm of voices.

In recent years, global industries

have seen considerable transforma-

tion brought by automation in the

workplace. One-third of activities in

about 60% of occupations worldwide

could be automatable, according to a

2017 report by management consult-

ing firm McKinsey & Co.

As the technology advances, AI has

gained increasing presence. It could

perform a widening range of tasks that

previously were done by humans and

has been used in recruiting and man-

agement processes.

The increasing prevalence of AI has

boosted efficiency and reduced costs

for companies but also has drawn con-

cerns about job losses and hidden dis-

crimination. Reuters last year unveiled

that Amazon abandoned an AI recruit-

ing tool in development, as the tech gi-

ant cannot fix its bias against women.

Uber’s facial recognition technology re-

portedly didn’t process and recognize

transgender drivers. A study published

by New York University’s AI Now Insti-

tute in April shows how many AI sys-

temsfavor white people and males.

Talking about such concerns around

AI, Joshua Feast, Cogito’s co-founder

and CEO, said its software doesn’t mean

to replace anybody. “We’re a coach,” he

said. “We’re sort of proud as a company

that we’re helping workers do well on

the job, helping customers have better

experiences on the phone and helping

our clients keep those customers.”

The company, which works with call

centers of large insurance companies,

including MetLife and Humana, retail

banks and credit card issuers, says it

has more than 25,000 users.

It helps to minimize bias that Cogito’s

algorithm analyzes biological signaling

mechanism, which largely is indepen-

dent on language and culture, Feast

said. The company also has deployed a

secondary algorithm and a human an-

notation team to check for bias, he add-

ed. AI comes into play when humans get

tired sometimes and suffer from “com-

passion fatigue,” according to Feast.

“What the AI is really doing is helping

somebody be more consistent in the

course of the day.” The software also

provides tools for supervisors to track

the performance of team members and

guide workers accordingly, though Feast

said Cogito doesn’t function as “a per-

formance management system.”

A customer agent at Humana han-

dles 30 to 40 calls a day on average, ac-

cording to Mark Morse, vice president

of Humana Pharmacy’s service opera-

tions. “When you’re tired or on any giv-

en day, what happens at home and frus-

trations in life can come into the contact

center,” he said.

But showing empathy is always im-

portant as the customers of life insur-

ance companies usually are “in the

midst of some of the most challenging

moments of their lives,” said Kristine

Poznanski, head of global customer so-

lutions at MetLife.

Using Cogito is not compulsory at

Humana, but the company is consider-

ing integrating Cogito’s assessment into

its bonus mechanism to promote the

software’s usage, said Morse.

When asked if human customer

agents would one day disappear, Feast

said he doesn’t think so, though the

trendof automation has been growing –

the share of customer service interac-

tions handled by AI will reach 15% by

2021, according to research company

Gartner. “Humans will always want to

talk to other humans,” Feast said. “The

reason is that only other humans really

understand us.”

The increasing use of artificial intelligence has boosted efficiency and reduced costs for many companies.GETTY IMAGES

AI helps ‘humanize’

customer service

Proponents say

consistency is

the primary goal

Frances Yue

USA TODAY

Cogito training software.COGITO

“What the AI is really doing

is helping somebody be

more consistent in the

course of the day.”

Joshua Feast,CEO, Cogito