Dive Brief:
- One in 5 customer service and support leaders have reduced agent staffing due to AI, according to a Gartner survey of over 320 leaders.
- While businesses are handling more customer inquiries, just over half of leaders — 55% — report maintaining staffing levels.
- Rather than simply replacing human staff, most businesses are focusing on using AI to aid representatives and boost their efficiency, according to Gartner.
Dive Insight:
Businesses, from Atlassian to Salesforce, have laid off customer service workers in recent months, pointing to the efficiencies gained by AI.
Salesforce, for example, reduced its customer support workforce from about 9,000 people to about 5,000, CEO Marc Benioff said in August. He credited AI agents for handling “millions of conversations” on a September earnings call.
Atlassian laid off 350 customer service and support workers this year and its CEO told employees that customer service issues would be largely addressed with AI.
But Gartner’s research suggests more businesses are using AI to address more customer service inquiries — and are keeping headcount stable or increasing AI expert roles. Two in five leaders are hiring specialized roles to better implement AI in customer service.
“Some leaders are seeing headcount reduction, but it's often indirect,” Melissa Fletcher, senior principal of research in the Gartner Customer Service & Support practice, said in an email. “Some leaders report that AI has made it possible for them to pause the backfilling of agent roles — allowing them to reduce headcount over time.”
And some businesses are pursuing multiple strategies at the same time; for example, hiring specialized staff while pausing the backfilling of some agent roles.
