More Than Half of CX Teams Will Add Tech, Not Headcount

There’s worry that tech spending increases, particularly on artificial intelligence, will lead to large-scale job losses in customer service, but a recent Gartner report disputes that notion.

Within two years, more than half of customer service organizations will double their technology spending, the research firm found. But the job reductions are far fewer, with only 20 percent saying in a separate Gartner report that they had reduced jobs due to AI.

Gartner found that by 2028, nearly 80 percent of organizations are likely to shift at least some agents into new roles, with 84 percent planning to add new skills to frontline positions. But Gartner has some strict warnings on that front.

“Despite mounting pressure to use AI to cut labor costs, organizations cannot rely on automation alone to replace the customer service workforce. Those that attempt rapid headcount reduction risk operational disruption, degraded customer experience, and expensive rollbacks,” it says. “Organizations aren’t cutting agents because AI is fully ready to take over.… Instead of replacing the workforce, leaders should prioritize reshaping it, shifting resources toward higher value activities that support growth.”

“We think that the future service and support workforce will be smaller, but we do think that there will be new opportunities: Evolving their current role, exploring new opportunities within the service and support function, as well as taking on new roles within the broader enterprise,” adds Gartner vice president analyst Kathy Ross and senior director analyst Emily Potosky.

They say that 85 percent of customer service leaders are adding new tasks and responsibilities to the agent role, asking them to take on greater volume or more complex issue types. As part of that, they’re looking at changing the skills or experience required for new agent hires.

“We find that 75 percent of leaders are focusing on shifting agents into entirely new roles within the service and support organization as AI creates a need for new jobs. These roles could include knowledge management specialist and conversational AI designers,” Ross and Potosky say.

Fifty-eight percent of customer service organizations are shifting employees to roles in other business units, according to Gartner.

The skills that human agents will need in the future will be shaped by the evolving goals of organizational leaders, according to Gartner. While technical skills are valuable, today’s leaders are placing greater emphasis on human skills, such as critical thinking, adaptability, and collaboration, that drive meaningful customer interactions. The future of agent training isn’t just about technology; it’s about empowering people to solve complex problems and deliver real value.

To meet these needs, training methods are also evolving, Ross and Potosky say. “Since agents can’t be pulled away from their roles for extended periods, organizations are adopting micro-learning sessions, AI-driven training simulations, and digital adoption platforms. Leaders are reimagining training, using innovative tools to upskill agents without disrupting their daily work. These approaches ensure agents are equipped with the skills and flexibility to thrive in more advanced roles.”

To derive the best ROI from AI, Ross and Potosky point to “likely wins” (fairly feasible and have the potential to deliver value), including AI assistants, customer routing, intelligent search, personalization, fraud detection, and summarization.

“That being said, leaders who are looking to technology as a way to cut workforce costs shouldn’t underestimate the net-new costs they will incur when making their investments,” they add. “Currently, for most service and support organizations the largest service and support expense is labor.”

However, organizations that manage to successfully reduce headcount due to AI investment (and this headcount reduction is not a given) will not be able to recoup all of those cost savings, as they will need to further reinvest them in the net-new roles, infrastructure modernization, and the costs of their technology solution, Gartner says. In short: to save money with AI you need to spend money.

“Depending on the technology deployed, leaders’ technology spend could be substantially larger than expected,” Ross and Potosky say. “We recommend leaders check their assumptions around the comparative cost of AI and human agents, as there may come a point at which performance gains from AI become too expensive to justify.”