Sam Altman says he’s “confident” that AI will first take over customer service roles as it transforms the job market.
Speaking on ‘The Tucker Carlson Show’ last Wednesday, Altman stated:
I’m confident that a lot of current customer support that happens over a phone or computer, those people will lose their jobs, and that’ll be better done by an AI.
The CEO didn’t only pick on customer service jobs; he suggested programmers could be next, as AI makes its presence felt.
“Someone told me recently that the historical average is about 50 percent of jobs significantly change… every 75 years, on average,” he said. “My controversial take would be that this is going to be like a punctuated equilibria moment where a lot of that will happen in a short period of time.”
Given this, Altman seems to think the staffing make-up of the contact center will change quickly. That comes after he previously predicted the end of human customer service altogether.
Despite that, he now suggests that jobs, like a nurse, are unlikely to meet their end due to the demand for human connection. “No matter how good the advice of the AI is or the robot, you’ll really want that,” he noted. However, surely, support agents can offer similar reassurance. Just think about vulnerable customers….
Nevertheless, Altman’s prediction is not unique, with Oracle sharing its aim last year to automate “all” of customer support. Meanwhile, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently boasted about slashing 4,000 live agents from the company’s support team.
The OpenAI CEO’s recent predictions have, however, been met by an eyeroll from many industry professionals.
As Steve Blood, VP of Market Intelligence & Evangelism at Five9, cheekily said, “There have been plenty of books written on how to run companies. Does that mean we can get rid of CEOs, too?”
Meanwhile, Tod Famous, Chief Product Officer at Crescendo, predicted: “There will be more people working CX 3 years from now than… today.”
Interestingly, recent Cavell research backs this up. The analyst suggests that demand for contact center agents will grow from 15.3 million in 2025 to 16.8 million by 2029.
Stephen Vandevenne, co-founder of QontactAI, added more of a perspective. “Customer service isn’t just about answering questions. It’s about empathy, nuance, and building trust.
“While AI can absolutely assist and enhance support operations, removing the human altogether overlooks the complexity and emotional intelligence required in many interactions.”
Interestingly, Five9, Crescendo, and QontactAI all offer customer support automation solutions. As does Glia, and Jake Tyler, GMT Strategy Leader at Glia, offered a similar view to Vandevenne in a LinkedIn post. “Totally gone?? Maybe…for some use cases, for some businesses, it’s possible. Not for most of us, though,” he wrote.
I think the hard lesson with AI is that while AI models are getting really great, there is still a lot of steps in a lot of processes and systems that still require humans.
With Gartner recently predicting that 50 percent of companies will abandon their plans to reduce headcount in their customer support team by 2027, that appears to be a critical piece of advice.