When I hear the doom-and-gloom mongerers telling me that AI will replace contact centre agents, I typically roll my eyes. 

The record’s been playing on repeat for 5 years straight now, and as of yet, it’s not happened in the way it’s been predicted. 

I’m bombarded daily with articles and posts telling me that contact centres won’t need agents in five years or that entire departments are about to disappear. 

It feels exhausting, and I’m sure that for any contact centre workers out there, it can feel very unsettling. 

Maybe some of it will happen. I’d actually be surprised if the contact centre landscape didn’t change. 

What I struggle with is how confident some people seem to be about exactly what that future looks like. 

Five years ago we were told chatbots would replace agents. 

Then it was self-service. 

Now it’s AI agents. 

In another five years it’ll probably be something else. 

And yet, most of the businesses I’ve worked with are still battling with the same operational problems they have had for years… 

Customers repeating themselves. 

Agents jumping between multiple systems just to answer a simple question. 

Managers trying to understand why one team is performing brilliantly whilst another is struggling. 

Processes that make perfect sense on a flowchart but fall apart the moment real people get involved. 

I remember working in contact centres years ago where people were predicting that automation would dramatically reduce headcount. Then six months later the same businesses were desperately trying to recruit because demand had increased, customer expectations had changed and the work itself had evolved. 

The technology changed. 

The job changed. 

The people didn’t disappear. 

That’s probably why I take some of these predictions with a pinch of salt. 

Not because I think AI is overhyped. I don’t. 

I think it’s incredibly powerful. 

I just think real businesses are usually far messier, far more complicated and far more human than the headlines make them sound. 

Over the years, when I think back to the people I’ve worked with who always seemed to land on their feet, they weren’t always the ones with the best CVs or the best technical knowledge. 

And if I’m being honest, some of the people I’ve seen build solid careers weren’t always the most obvious candidates. 

One of the best sales managers I ever worked with genuinely wasn’t the best salesperson in the room. There were plenty of people who could outsell him, all day long. 

But whenever there was a problem, everyone ended up at his desk. 

He understood how the business worked. 

He knew where things got stuck. 

He knew which process was causing headaches and which customer was likely to kick off before anyone else had spotted it. 

The same thing applies in customer service. 

Every contact centre seems to have those people. 

The ones who know how everything joins up. 

The ones who can calm down an angry customer, spot when a process is broken, help a struggling colleague and somehow make sense of a messy situation that nobody else wants to touch. 

Funnily enough, those are rarely the people I worry about when the AI conversation comes up. 

Because most businesses aren’t built around job titles. 

They’re built around people who solve problems. 

And the people who consistently solve problems seem to find opportunities regardless of what technology happens to be doing at the time. 

Something else I’ve noticed over the years is that people who adapt the quickest are typically interested in more than just their own role. And I don’t mean they are working more hours or trying to do everyone else’s jobs. 

They are curious. 

They want to know why customers keep calling about the same issue. 

They want to know why one team is drowning whilst another seems to be coping just fine. 

They want to know why a process takes ten steps when it feels like it should take three. 

I remember working with a customer service agent years ago who used to ask endless questions. 

At the time, I remember thinking she was a nightmare 😭 

Every meeting turned into twenty questions. 

Why do we do it like that? 

Who decided this process? 

What happens if the customer does this instead? 

Can we not just change it? 

A few years later she’d moved into project work, then operations and eventually into a leadership role. 

Not because she was the loudest person in the room. 

Not because she was the best agent. 

She just understood far more about how the business worked than most people around her. 

When things changed, she adapted quickly because she already understood the moving parts. 

She wasn’t starting from scratch. 

I remember when webchat started becoming a bigger thing. 

There were plenty of people convinced customers would never use it. 

After all, why would they? People liked calling. 

They liked speaking to someone, at least that was the argument. 

Then customers started using it. 

Then they started expecting it. 

Then suddenly, businesses were scrambling to catch up because customer behaviour had already moved on. 

I’ve seen the same thing happen with social media, WhatsApp and remote working. 

It’s funny how, when we look back, no one ever seems to remember the predictions that got it wrong. 

We only remember the ones that got it right! 

And that’s exactly why I tend to eye-roll at some of the AI conversations. 

I do think AI will change things. 

I’d be daft not to. 

Some of the things it can do today would’ve sounded ridiculous a few years ago. 

But that’s probably why I find some of the conversations around it so frustrating. 

Not because I think AI is overhyped. 

And not because I think nothing will change. 

I just think we’re kidding ourselves if we believe we know exactly what those changes will look like five years from now. 

Most of us can barely predict what’s happening next quarter. 

What I do know is that every major change I’ve seen over the last twenty years has created opportunities for people who were willing to learn, get involved and adapt. 

The sales manager adapted. 

The customer service agent adapted. 

Neither of them knew what the future looked like. 

Most of us don’t. 

And that’s probably the point. 

The people I’ve seen build long, successful careers were rarely the ones worrying about change. 

They were usually the ones getting stuck in whilst everyone else was still debating whether the change was coming. 

So when all the noise around AI dies down, what skills do you think will still matter most?