Digicel Group's AI assistant Ruby now resolves 55 percent of customer queries in Jamaica without human involvement, according to the company's 2026 Sustainability Report. The telecom provider, which serves more than nine million customers across 25 markets, plans to expand Ruby to additional territories during the financial year ending March 2027.
The disclosure offers an early look at AI-driven customer care in a region where outsourcing has long been a major employer. Jamaica's outsourcing sector has already lost roughly one-third of its workforce since 2024, and Digicel says Ruby deflects more than half of interactions away from human agents.
What Ruby does
Ruby, built on a platform developed by Canadian AI firm Ada, is available across WhatsApp, voice, web, and the MyDigicel app. It handles routine tasks such as checking balances, activating plans, paying bills, and resolving common technical issues.
"Since its launch in Jamaica, Ruby has supported more than 535,000 conversations, with the smart assistant successfully handling 55 per cent of interactions without the need for human agent support," the report said.
The company positions Ruby as a complement to its human support teams, not a replacement. Digicel said the tool enables customer care staff to focus on people with more complex support needs.
Expansion and data collection
Digicel called the upgraded assistant "an AI-powered smart digital assistant" that evolved from a knowledge-based support tool during the financial year that ended in March 2026. The enhancements respond to customer demand for faster access to support, assistance outside business hours, and more flexible engagement options, the company said.
The sustainability report does not address workforce implications of Ruby's expansion. In May, however, Digicel published a privacy notice disclosing that Ruby can collect personal data during interactions and may share customer data with roughly 30 third-party processors - among them ADA Support, which powers the chatbot, and AI model providers Anthropic and OpenAI. Servers are located primarily in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Customers retain the right to ask for a human representative at any point during a call, the notice said. For customer support professionals tracking AI skills, the Ruby rollout shows how AI agents are taking on a measurable share of routine tiers in live production environments.
Outsourcing slowdown in Jamaica
Jamaica's outsourcing industry peaked at 60,000 workers in 2024. That is not the same as saying the fall is here - but the timeline of Ruby's arrival overlaps with market-wide contraction.
The sector now employs 40,000 workers, down one-third, according to a census by the Global Services Association of Jamaica. Annual earnings from outsourcing fell an estimated 10 percent to roughly US$900 million.
The government ties the decline to reshoring by North American clients, rising local operating costs, productivity challenges, and facility damage from Hurricane Melissa. It also attributes part of the dip to early effects of AI-driven automation.
In Montego Bay, more than 103,000 square feet of commercial space in at least seven properties has sat vacant since October. That inventory doesn't include the recent exit of a provider that occupied a 30,000 square foot building.
Why this matters for customer support
For customer support staff, the practical signal from Ruby isn't the deflection rate; it's the pattern. Digicel expanded an AI agent across routine tiers, kept humans for complex cases, and withheld workforce details from public reporting.
If your job involves tier-one triage and balance checks, tools that are not dramatically different from Ruby can already handle a meaningful slice of ticket volume growing globally. The takeaway is not to panic over 55 percent deflection - it's to watch how your employer handles usage of AI agents internally and to be ready for the questions about data handling and human backup that will probably come with change.
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