Here Are the Customer Service Jobs AI Isn’t Expected to Replace

A new report also suggests that half of the companies planning drastic cuts and replacing workers with AI will drop their plans in a year or two.

By Kit Eaton

Of all the jobs that AI may replace more quickly than others, many experts have predicted that customer service might be one of the places this buzzy tech makes the deepest impact. Given the number of bots that pop up to offer help when you’re shopping online, you may well agree. But a new report from Gartner predicts something different. The experts at the analytics firm think that no Fortune 500 company will actually replace human agents completely by 2028. 

That is just a three-year window, and you may expect that high-profile firms like those on the 500 list may value the traditional human touch — and pay for it — more so than less deep-pocketed companies. But amid a flood of doomy predictions about AI’s impact on the jobs market, this is an upbeat note.

And there’s more. Gartner also expects that half of these organizations that are currently planning to slash workforce numbers in favor of AI systems will abandon that plan by 2027, HRDive reports. If this proves true, it’ll run against many pro-AI experts’ expectations, and it could be a sign that AI adoption is going through a bubble-like surge at the moment. Should that happen, the hype and frenetic efforts by businesses to replace people with AI at many jobs will settle down in time. This is something that happens with many types of dramatically new technology.

These companies will give up on dramatic AI-driven change because they simply fail to achieve their efforts at replacing paid employees with AI tools, Gartner predicts. In the report, Kathy Ross, a senior director analyst in the customer service and support sector, explains that while “AI and automation are transforming how customer service organizations serve customers,” the simple fact is that “human agents are irreplaceable when it comes to handling nuanced situations and building lasting relationships.”

That is just a three-year window, and you may expect that high-profile firms like those on the 500 list may value the traditional human touch — and pay for it — more so than less deep-pocketed companies. But amid a flood of doomy predictions about AI’s impact on the jobs market, this is an upbeat note.

And there’s more. Gartner also expects that half of these organizations that are currently planning to slash workforce numbers in favor of AI systems will abandon that plan by 2027, HRDive reports. If this proves true, it’ll run against many pro-AI experts’ expectations, and it could be a sign that AI adoption is going through a bubble-like surge at the moment. Should that happen, the hype and frenetic efforts by businesses to replace people with AI at many jobs will settle down in time. This is something that happens with many types of dramatically new technology.

These companies will give up on dramatic AI-driven change because they simply fail to achieve their efforts at replacing paid employees with AI tools, Gartner predicts. In the report, Kathy Ross, a senior director analyst in the customer service and support sector, explains that while “AI and automation are transforming how customer service organizations serve customers,” the simple fact is that “human agents are irreplaceable when it comes to handling nuanced situations and building lasting relationships.”

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The human touch is impossible to replace with technology at this point, Gartner concludes. Ross notes that Gartner’s insights show that “While AI excels at handling routine and well-defined problems, it often struggles with exceptions and high-risk scenarios.” In many cases, this means AI has already taken over some of the rote parts of customer service jobs — simple tasks like taking a customer’s name, and perhaps looking up specific info like order numbers. But because real people are complex, and difficult to predict, AI can’t necessarily deal with more tricky customer service problems or requests. 

This can actually be a benefit to organizations that offer customer service, if they play their cards right, says Ross: “Leaders who strategically focus their workforce to support complex, high-value customer interactions will set their organizations apart and drive long-term growth and satisfaction.”

As HRDive points out, this sentiment aligns neatly with real-life expectations of the average person calling customer support: A HubSpot and SurveyMonkey survey recently found that about four in five customers would prefer to speak to a real person rather than an AI, even if the wait times are the same. Another report in August highlighted that for some customers the experience of speaking to an AI system instead of a real human agent may actually infuriate them further, potentially causing reputational damage to your brand.

What can you take away from this for your business?

Firstly, note that it aligns with another recent report that points out AI is unlikely to outright replace human sales influencers any time soon. The evidence here is that when a brand tries using an AI-driven livestreaming promo, it has little to no effect on sales — whereas a real human streamer has a positive effect on numbers. 

Combine these two reports and you can see that at least when it comes to sales and (presumably post-sales) customer support, people still prefer the human angle. If your company is considering automating sections of your sales chain with AI tech, maybe it’s time to run some simulations and check if you’ll actually be getting a good return on the investment. 

Secondly, not every business has to rush to be the first to adopt smart AI tech. You can differentiate yourself from your rivals by pointing out, perhaps in your marketing materials or customer support system, that your enterprise still values connecting real people with real people — not software.