12h ago

Call Center Jobs Resist AI Automation Despite Years of Predictions

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Original post
OPRavid Shwartz Ziv#612Ravid Shwartz Ziv@ZIV_RAVID

Everyone's certain AI will reshape the job market. The job market will change, but the signal-to-noise ratio right now is so high that I don't think anyone actually knows how or when. Exhibit A: call center reps. This is the job that was "about to be fully automated" years ago. But wen you call, 90% of the time you're just trying pressing the right menu option, and it's such an unpleasant experience that most people would rather do anything online. When you do need to call, you end up in endless menu/agent loops, fighting to find the hack to reach a human. And yet: US customer service rep employment is only slightly down. ~2.8M people. A 5% projected decline over a decade. If this is the job that should be eliminated first, and it's barely budged, we really don't know what's coming.

5:31 AM · May 19, 2026 View on X
POSTRavid Shwartz Ziv#612Ravid Shwartz Ziv@ZIV_RAVID

Everyone's certain AI will reshape the job market. The job market will change, but the signal-to-noise ratio right now is so low that I don't think anyone actually knows how or when. Exhibit A: call center reps. This is the job that was "about to be fully automated" years ago. But wen you call, 90% of the time you're just trying pressing the right menu option, and it's such an unpleasant experience that most people would rather do anything online. When you do need to call, you end up in endless menu/agent loops, fighting to find the hack to reach a human. And yet: US customer service rep employment is only slightly down. ~2.8M people. A 5% projected decline over a decade.

If this is the job that should be eliminated first, and it's barely budged, we really don't know what's coming.

3:02 PM · May 19, 2026 · 895 Views
POSTRavid Shwartz Ziv#612Ravid Shwartz Ziv@ZIV_RAVID

Everyone's certain AI will reshape the job market. The job market will change, but the signal-to-noise ratio right now is so low that I don't think anyone actually knows how or when.

Exhibit A: call center reps. This is the job that was "about to be fully automated" years ago. But wen you call, 90% of the time you're just trying pressing the right menu option, and it's such an unpleasant experience that most people would rather do anything online. When you do need to call, you end up in endless menu/agent loops, fighting to find the hack to reach a human.

And yet: US customer service rep employment is only slightly down. ~2.8M people. A 5% projected decline over a decade.

If this is the job that should be eliminated first, and it's barely budged, we really don't know what's coming.

12:56 PM · May 19, 2026 · 583 Views