The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in Bangladesh, once known solely for voice-based customer service and back-office support, is cautiously but steadily embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to stay relevant in an evolving global market.

This shift was evident at the recently concluded BPO Summit Bangladesh 2025, where dozens of companies showcased their AI-powered tools and shared plans for transformation.

Held over two days at Senaprangan in Dhaka, the summit drew stakeholders who came to explore how Bangladesh's $850 million BPO sector is preparing for the AI era.

According to the Bangladesh Association of Contact Center and Outsourcing (BACCO), the sector employs over 80,000 people, some 40 percent of whom are female.

With full-scale automation still distant for many, several firms are already experimenting with AI to improve efficiency, accuracy, and client satisfaction.

"As we know AI is coming, we're trying to adapt," said Nahid Sultan, senior software engineer at FinSource.

FinSource Limited is one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in Bangladesh, working as an offshore unit of a leading US-based retirement plan provider that started operations in Bangladesh in 2019 and now employs over 212 people.

"We're working on integrating Azure-based AI tools to improve decision-making and data analysis," he added.

MY Outsourcing Limited is a leading contact centre service provider with extensive experience in working with most multinational corporations (MNCs) and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies in Bangladesh.

Established in 2012 and a concern of MY Group of Companies, it specialises in offering extensive and comprehensive contact centre services and back-office support with robust infrastructure.

Apart from enhancing customer experience, it is highly specialised in providing tailored enterprise management solutions as per the needs of clients and customers.

It now employs over 450 people.

"We've begun implementing AI in our customer solutions. For instance, our systems can now engage clients using AI before escalating to human support," said Fardin Rahman Nihal, business development executive at MY Outsourcing.

"This reduces response time and makes our operation more scalable," he said.

Mevrik, a product-based company focused on digital customer experience in the finance and tax sectors, is a case in point.

It began AI development back in 2018 and now deploys local engineers for its solutions.

"Our AI acts as the first responder in digital customer service. Think of services like MyGP – if you ask for your balance, AI answers first. Only when there's ambiguity does a human agent step in," said Reyad Hossain, head of operations at Mevrik.

"We're handling nearly 100,000 repetitive queries daily for a single client, which otherwise would need hundreds of human agents," he said.

Younger firms, too, are diving in.

Digipro Solutions Ltd, founded in 2022, now employs 70 people and specialises in end-to-end accounting and finance solutions.

Its manager, Maruf Mosharraf, said, "Our AI-driven reconciliation tools can detect mismatches in financial reports far quicker than a big manual team."

At NR Business Solutions Ltd, founded in 2021, AI is being used for digital marketing analytics and back-office operations. "It saves time and increases accuracy in non-voice tasks," said Mahmudul Hasan, an executive at the firm.

BYTE Trek, a 2018-founded back-office service provider with over 50 staff, is building an AI-powered chatbot to automate billing and customer queries.

"It's an ongoing process, but we believe AI will ease repetitive tasks," said Hasib Kibria, its deputy manager.

Even traditional contact centre giants like ISSL, which has over 500 employees, are not ignoring the trend.

"AI integration is in our roadmap for the next phase," said Zahid Hussain, an executive of the company.

At the summit, innovation was also brewing at Narsingdi Science and Robotics Lab's booth, where a group of young engineers unveiled a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) surveillance drone, which was still under development.

"It's self-funded. We're inspired by Turkey's Bayraktar drone and hope to build our own combat-grade version," said Chief Financial Officer Abdullah Al Mamun.

The importance of adopting AI in business and solutions was also echoed by Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, special assistant to the chief adviser with executive authority over the posts, telecommunications, and ICT ministry, during the opening ceremony of the summit.

He said if the BPO companies in Bangladesh fail to embrace technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and large language models, they will fall behind in global competition.

"Technological advancement over the past two years has surpassed all previous eras of innovation," he said.