Amelia works at the online and phone-in help desks at the Swedish bank SEB. Blond and blue-eyed, she has a confident bearing softened by a slightly self-conscious smile. Amelia also works in London for the Borough of Enfield and in Zurich for UBS. And did I mention that Amelia can memorize a 300-page manual in 30 seconds, speak 20 languages and handle thousands of calls simultaneously?

Amelia is a white-collar robot. She interacts with customers over the phone, as a chatbot and as a three-dimensional avatar on smartphone...