When Gartner surveyed 321 customer service leaders in October 2025, only 20% said they had cut agent jobs because of AI.
The figure comes as companies keep investing in AI and rethinking what they expect from customer service teams.
Many are reworking the job. Nearly 80% of organizations plan to move at least some agents into new roles, and 84% want to add skills to the agent profile, Gartner found.
More than half, 58%, plan to train agents as knowledge management specialists.
But what happens when AI takes over the routine tickets?
How Has AI Altered the CX Role?
A year ago, a large share of an agent’s day was spent on routine tasks such as status checks, password resets, and simple account updates.
"Today, AI has absorbed most of that work, and agents now spend their time on the harder tickets that need judgment, context, and the ability to read a situation,” says Travis Low, Hugo’s AI/CX Practice Lead.
Hugo, a business process outsourcing provider, says more than 70% of its employees use AI tools daily.
Hugo also uses AI behind the scenes to expand agent capacity and help staff move faster on issues that don’t need human judgment.
Low says AI has absorbed most of that routine work.
"The day-to-day didn’t get lighter. It has gotten denser," Low adds.
Agents see fewer routine contacts now. The ones left are messier, with more ambiguity, more emotion, and more riding on the outcome.
Low says that has pushed agents into making more decisions and solving more problems on their own.
"That’s why the role is getting more senior rather than disappearing," he says.
Wider research points the same way. BCG puts 14% of current jobs in a group it calls “rebalanced.” In those jobs, AI takes over the routine tasks and the harder work grows.
BCG expects the redesigned jobs to ask more of people, with greater expertise, oversight, and accountability.
Call center representatives sit in a separate category, though, since AI can automate routine inquiries and demand for those interactions is largely bounded.
Salesforce’s customer service research found something similar. Eighty-three percent of service professionals say AI is opening up better career opportunities, and 82% say they’re picking up new skills.
According to Salesforce, generative AI is taking routine queries off reps’ plates and leaving them the harder, emotionally charged conversations that need empathy and creative problem-solving.
Low gives a simple example. A customer asks to cancel, and AI can process that request just fine.
An experienced agent, though, might pick up that the customer is really upset about something that went wrong earlier.
"Getting the answer right but the tone wrong can be worse than a slow response," Low says.
What Skills Do CX Agents Need Now?
Most service leaders in the Gartner survey say headcount has held steady even as they support more customers.
Gartner also predicts that by 2027, half of companies that cut service staff because of AI will rehire for similar work under different job titles.
That puts the skills inside the role at the center of workforce planning.
Low points to three skills that matter more as the role gets more senior.
Knowing when to break from the script. Some cases need an exception or an escalation, and the script won’t tell agents which ones.
Reading the full context. A customer’s history, the relevant business rules, their emotional state, and the commercial stakes can all shape what should happen next.
Questioning the AI.
"An AI suggestion can look authoritative and still be wrong," Low says.
"Catching that requires someone with enough business context to know when the AI is wrong and override it. The agents who thrive are the ones who direct it."
Hugo prepares agents for that role through continuous training on judgment, problem-solving, and the business context needed to direct AI.
How Should Companies Prepare CX Agents?
Hugo recommends three steps.
1. Protect the time AI frees up. Don’t let it get swallowed by longer handle times or busywork. Spend it on higher-value work.
2. Give agents harder cases early. Agents need exposure to difficult conversations, working alongside experienced colleagues they can escalate to and learn from.
"You don’t prepare someone for complex conversations by keeping them on simple ones," Low says.
3. Keep experienced people. As the work demands more judgment, the business knowledge experienced agents carry becomes more valuable.
Hugo reports 4% agent turnover, compared with an industry average above 30%.
As AI takes over routine requests, more of the work left in customer service roles calls for judgment and experience.
For companies adopting AI in customer service, workforce planning needs to account for the skills those roles require as well as the number of agents needed to handle customer volume.
