SINGAPORE - The CPF Board has been using artificial intelligence (AI) since March to automatically transcribe and summarise calls made to its helpline, allowing human call agents’ time to answer more calls as well aid those who need more help.

With the help of local tech firm NCS, it is currently piloting a feature that can identify callers who are less tech-savvy and prioritises them to reach a call agent faster.

Previously, call agents had to transcribe and summarise every call that they handled after the conversation ended.

“Now they become editors instead – they still need to go through the transcript to ensure that it is correct,” said Mr Ng Hock Keong, CPF Board’s deputy CEO of infocomm technology and digital services.

Speaking to The Straits Times on the sidelines of the NCS Impact 2025 held at Marina Bay Sands Expo on July 10, he said the impetus for the project was to leverage AI to better serve Singaporeans. In 2024, the Central Provident Fund call centre managed 622,000 calls.

“The cognitive load on the call agents will also be different because they don’t have to worry about how to summarise a call later,” said Mr Ng, adding that it means agents will be able to concentrate better on explaining CPF’s policies or handling a case.

The AI system was built using a large language model from cloud computing company Amazon Web Services. Its transcription function is currently available in English, Chinese and Malay, with Tamil in the pipeline.

In June, new functions were introduced to the system.

One of the new features automatically evaluates a call’s service quality, based on indicators such as the caller’s language, tone and volume. A rating is given for every call, and supervisors can also review the ratings to ensure fairness.

This feature helps cut the time needed to audit service quality of calls, which can be a labour-intensive task, said Mr Ng.

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