AI Reshapes Customer Service Jobs Worldwide

What Is Happening

Artificial intelligence tools are changing the day-to-day reality of customer-service work around the world, according to CNBC reporting from October 2026. Workers interviewed by CNBC described sharply different experiences: one agent at a credit card company said AI allows her to give each customer more attention, while an agent at a telecommunications company in Cardiff, Wales, said AI-generated call notes are frequently inaccurate and add to her workload rather than reducing it.

The Numbers

According to MaxContact's 2025/26 UK Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report, more than half of surveyed contact-centre decision-makers said agent workloads had increased, compared with around 40% the year before. The report does not identify a single cause for the rise. Separately, UK-based customer experience company ArvatoConnect told CNBC it aims for 70% of customer interactions to be handled by technology and 30% by people. An AI tool ArvatoConnect developed for a UK government procurement agency generates draft supplier assessments with 97% accuracy, the company's CEO said, cutting hours of manual data work.

What Researchers and Companies Say

Amanda Jones, who researches organisational behaviour and the future of work at King's College London, told CNBC that removing routine tasks could make call-centre roles more psychologically demanding, not less. She noted that straightforward tasks provide mental relief between harder ones, and that automating them could intensify the working day even if total call volume stays the same. Jones also cautioned that productivity gains may lead to stricter performance targets, and that workers could lose the gradual on-the-job experience that traditionally prepares them for more complex responsibilities.

Nikola Mrkšić, CEO of London-based voice AI company PolyAI, told CNBC that contact-centre agents often face high stress for low pay, and that AI could help share that burden. Virgin Media O2, a British telecom and media company, launched an AI voice agent in September to handle routine issues so human advisors can concentrate on sensitive or complicated cases.

Why It Matters for Job Seekers

• If you work in customer service, be aware that AI tools may reduce routine tasks but increase the complexity and emotional weight of the cases that reach you, according to the CNBC report.
• If you are entering the customer-service sector, consider that on-the-job learning from simpler interactions may become less available, making it harder to build experience gradually, as researchers quoted by CNBC warn.
• If you manage a customer-service team, the benchmarking data suggests workloads are rising; ArvatoConnect's CEO argues that performance metrics may need to shift away from speed targets toward judgement and resolution quality.
• If you are an experienced agent, skills such as empathy, sound judgement and handling frustrated customers are highlighted by multiple sources in the CNBC report as the qualities AI cannot easily replicate.

Audience note: This story affects customer-service workers and job seekers in that sector worldwide, particularly in the United Kingdom where several of the companies and survey data cited are based.