As AI absorbs service work, will human-delivered service become a premium offering or simply be eroded?

Harry Stebbings · Jul 31, 2024 · hedged

AI's early impact is falling hardest on lower-income workers, with customer service as the Trojan horse where teams are already being cut by large percentages

Companies are seeing roughly 70% improvements in customer service with AI and cutting workforce accordingly

Scope: frames it as possibly over-worrying and asks whether redistribution rather than removal of talent will prevail; concedes that in the majority of cases talent gets redistributed to new projects and expansion

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Mamoon Hamid · Oct 21, 2024 · hedged

In ten years it will seem absurd that people had to speak to human customer support agents; routine service requests will be resolved by agents talking to agents

Tasks like changing a flight or dealing with a bank are already ones where you scratch your head about why a human is involved; a text message should get resolved on the back end

Scope: stated as 'hopefully'

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Harry Stebbings · Feb 16, 2026

The human-premium-service vision is idealistic because most customer support people are not that thoughtful, and low-skilled labour like basic support, social media marketing and low-level content creation will be eroded faster than ever

Support is typically a one-or-two-year role people move on from, and genuine thoughtfulness requires training and development most agents never get

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Sebastian Siemiatkowski · Feb 16, 2026

AI will make customer service the cheap commodity option, and human connection will become the premium VIP experience

Historically, industrialization of cheap clothing and furniture made artisan goods appreciated; the same dynamic will apply to service

16:35 Human connection becomes the premium vip tier