Virtual Agents Are Replacing Humans - And That Might Be a Good Thing

The Contact Center Workforce Is Changing - Fast

Even before the recent explosion in generative AI, forecasts predicted declining contact center agent populations. A 2021 Gartner report projected a reduction of 0.3% in customer service agents from 2019 to 2024. An updated report in 2024 identified that despite a forecasted 16% increase in customer service interaction volume from 2024 to 2028, customer service agent reductions will reach 3% to 4% or more annually starting in 2027.

Fueling this are the capabilities of virtual agents, no longer limited to simple queries - they’re becoming capable of handling complex, multi-turn interactions. Just as I recently created a 3-minute hyper-realistic music video using generative AI - complete with characters across multiple life stages - virtual agents are becoming nearly indistinguishable from humans. With that, we can expect a rapid increase in both the volume and complexity of customer interactions that can be served without a human with nothing but positive impacts on the customer experience (keep reading to learn how). That means a faster and broader impact on the human workforce.

But it’s not all doom and gloom.

So what does this mean for the workforce (aside from the aforementioned population decline)? It won’t disappear but it will evolve. Yes, for the foreseeable future, humans will still be needed to handle complex, high-emotion, or high-stakes scenarios. Automation, not just of the conversation itself, but of the associated actions, will take time. This shift allows agents to 'level up,' focusing on more strategic, impactful work, no longer tied to the mundane and repetitive (reset my password, fill my prescription, cancel my service). While these more complex interactions will be fewer, they’ll likely be longer.

In addition to outright automation, virtual agents will support human agents, helping them be more effective and drive toward resolution faster. But what I find even more interesting is the concept of 'promotions' within the human workforce - from a 'doer' to a 'super' - a supervisor of bots. For complex and sensitive conversations, humans may step into orchestration roles, managing a virtual agent workforce in a hybrid, human-in-the-loop capacity. Imagine one agent with the power and reach of tens, possibly hundreds of traditional agents. We are seeing similar promotions in the coding world of software development.

We’ve Seen This Before: Lessons from Manufacturing

To understand where this might go, let’s look back. In 1954, George Devol filed the first industrial robot patent, eventually leading to Unimate’s installation in a GM plant in 1961. By the 1970s and 1980s, programmable logic controllers and robotic assembly lines were becoming the norm.

Yes, factory jobs were lost, particularly low-skill, repetitive ones. But new roles were created: technicians to maintain machines, engineers to design systems, and analysts to optimize output. Productivity skyrocketed. Companies became more competitive. Entire sectors, from logistics to IT, emerged and grew. And importantly, dangerous and physically demanding jobs were handed off to machines, improving worker safety.

The same dynamic is playing out today in contact centers, only faster.

We’re Already Living the Change: QA as a Case Study

At CallMiner, we’ve seen this workforce evolution first-hand. Quality Assurance (QA) staff once spent their days listening to call recordings. Today, they’re becoming business analysts, implementing automated QA processes and extracting valuable insights.

AI now enables 100% interaction coverage, transforming performance management from an inconsistent, manual process to a precise, scalable one. These former QA specialists now provide voice-of-the-customer intelligence that guides product decisions, retention strategies, and customer success initiatives.

It’s a clear example of technology not replacing humans, rather elevating their role.

Industry Vendors Must Adapt, Too

This transformation won’t just affect agents, it will ripple across the ecosystem of businesses built to support human agent workforces.

Think:

• Commercial real estate (especially pre-pandemic office-based contact centers)
• Headset manufacturers
• Business process outsourcers (BPOs)
• CCaaS platforms and Workforce Management software

Many of these solutions were designed for a world with large, human-staffed contact centers. A virtual workforce changes the equation and creates opportunities for new types of vendors: ones that specialize in conversational AI, virtual workforce orchestration, automation analytics, and human-in-the-loop support. Like other industry disruptions (digital music, streaming video, smartphones), some industry giants will evolve while others will dissolve.

And What About the Customer? A Better Experience, Faster

Let’s flip the lens. What does all this mean for the customer experience?

At CallMiner’s recent European customer conference (#LISTENUK), our CPO Bruce McMahon shared a slide outlining what customers truly care about:

• Proactive communication
• Personalization
• Availability
• First-contact resolution
• Being heard

While implied by several of these, I’d add one more to this list: Speed – the currency of modern life. We want things done right, and we want them done fast because our time is the most precious commodity, one that is threatened when things go wrong or don't work as expected with our products, services, or otherwise.

Automation is dramatically improving the customer experience in several ways.

• Proactive Communication: Easier to scale and more efficient through automated outbound virtual agents (such as those supported by VOCALLs)
• Personalization: Leveraging real-time customer data, past interactions, and preferences to tailor responses, route inquiries intelligently, and proactively engage users. This creates a more relevant, efficient, and human-like experience at scale.
• Availability: 24/7 support across time zones, without needing to scale human staffing. While there are costs to scale, virtual agents never tire.
• Resolution: AI can resolve many requests instantly, from password resets to prescription refills, and consistently. No more calling back in hopes of a connecting with a more competent agent - virtual agents offer predictable, high-quality responses.
• Speed: No hold music, no navigating menus - just instant answers, not unlike how searching for answers on the web has accelerated thanks to Large Language Models (LLMs) like Google’s Gemini, Open AI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and others. Speed to resolution will also be improved through after-action automation (booking reservations, renewing prescriptions, initiating transactions).
• Being Heard: Automation of conversation analysis is capable of accurately capturing customer intent, emotions, and feedback across every interaction - not just a random sample. This information can be summarized, escalated, and acted on more consistently than humans alone, ensuring customer voices are acknowledged and responded to appropriately and expediently.

The Impact on Customer Engagement Channels and Resulting CX

Automation will also play a significant role in overhauling the channel mix in what I would refer to as the broken promise of omni-channel strategies. The goal was to improve customer service and reduce costs through deflection to lower cost channels, but just the opposite happened. Virtual agents, especially those with native voice capabilities, will support customers through the communication channel that best suits their situation. Speech is our most natural and effortless form of communication, and while digital channels are growing in popularity and are preferred in certain contexts (like chatting with a customer service agent about your flight while attending a work meeting), voice still represents the highest volume of interactions in customer support and contact centers.

Gartner agrees stating that “Phone remains the most-preferred channel across generations…” their report Predicts 2025: Voice-Based Customer Service Isn’t Going Anywhere (referenced here: Gartner Press Release). They note that "multichannel service journeys have become increasingly complex and expensive" due to the expansion of communication channels. We’re likely to see a reversal of that trend - a consolidation into fewer channels, powered by automation - as "advancements in voice-enabled conversational AI [will] dramatically simplify the service experience" in the coming years.

In Summary: A Sea Change in Motion

This is no longer theoretical — the change is here. Let’s recap:

• Agent roles will decline, and likely faster than previously forecast
• New opportunities will emerge, with agents taking on more strategic and supervisory responsibilities
• Vendor ecosystems will shift, making room for new players and business models
• Customers will benefit, with faster, more consistent, more available service

After nearly two decades in this space, it’s clear to me that we’re at a profound inflection point. Just as with manufacturing or software development, the workforce will adapt, roles will evolve, and customer expectations will rise.

And ultimately, that’s the promise of AI: Not to replace us, but to do more for us - freeing time, improving service, and making our lives just a little bit easier.