对于在信用卡公司从事客户服务工作的 Kaylee Harris 来说，现在的工作日与过去大不相同。
For Kaylee Harris, who works in customer service for a credit card company, a day at work now looks very different.
她过去的工时充满了接听电话、记笔记和冗长的卡片信息披露。如今，得益于人工智能，她能更专注于每一位客户，Harris 告诉 CNBC。
Her hours used to be filled with calls, note-taking and lengthy card disclosures. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, she can focus more on each customer, Harris told CNBC.
对于 Shannon 来说，AI 也改变了现状——但并非向好的方向。她在威尔士卡迪夫一家电信公司从事客户服务工作，因担心被雇主识别身份，不愿透露姓氏。她告诉 CNBC，目前工作场所 AI 生成的笔记往往错漏百出，“所以我只能自己写。”在她之前的雇主、一家物业服务公司，高层管理人员曾告诉员工，如果不知道答案就“去问 ChatGPT”。AI 代理负责预约，但当它们无法提供客户要求的日期时，会将案件转交给人工。
For Shannon, AI has also changed things — but not in a good way. She works in customer service for a telecommunications company in Cardiff, Wales, and did not want to share her surname for fear of being identified by her employer. She told CNBC that AI-generated notes at her current workplace are often riddled with errors, "so I just write my own." At her previous employer, a property services company, senior management told staff to "ChatGPT it" if they didn't know the answer. AI agents booked appointments, but when they couldn't offer a customer the requested date, they passed the case to a human.
Shannon 说，员工们“一直在救火”。“所有棘手的案子都找上我们，导致严重的职业倦怠。”对员工和客户都有利？
Staff were "constantly fighting fires," Shannon said. "All the complicated cases came to us, causing a lot of burnout." Good for both employees and customers?
理论上，客户服务自动化应意味着人工坐席花在行政事务上的时间减少，从而有更多时间运用人类的判断力、同理心和经验去帮助客户解决问题。
In theory, automation in customer service should mean human agents spend less time on admin and more time helping customers with problems that require human judgment, empathy and experience.
总部位于伦敦的 PolyAI 公司开发用于客户服务的语音 AI 系统，其首席执行官兼联合创始人 Nikola Mrkšić 表示，呼叫中心坐席可能面临“拿着最低工资却要承受最大的辱骂”。他们常要应对愤怒的客户，却在严格的绩效指标下工作，有时既无权限也无信息来解决问题，他对 CNBC 表示。他视 AI 代理为分担这一负担的一种方式。
Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and co-founder of London-headquartered PolyAI, which develops voice AI systems for customer service, said contact-center agents can face "maximum abuse for minimum wage." They often deal with frustrated customers while working under strict performance metrics, sometimes without the authority or information to resolve problems, he told CNBC. He sees AI agents as a way to help shoulder that load.
最低工资换来最大程度的剥削Nikola Mrkšić PolyAI“这确实是一份非常、非常困难的工作，”他说。“我认为借助人工智能，我们有机会弥合差距，让客户和员工双方都受益。”
Maximum abuse for minimum wageNikola MrkšićPolyAI "It's a really, really difficult job," he said. "I think with AI, we have a shot at bridging the gap to make it better for both [customers and employees]."
英国电信和媒体公司 Virgin Media O2 于 9 月推出了一款 AI 语音代理，该公司表示这正是为此而设计的。该代理处理常规问题，以便人工顾问能花更多时间处理复杂或敏感的案件。
British telecom and media company Virgin Media O2 launched an AI voice agent in September, which it said was designed to do just that. The agent handles routine issues so human advisors can spend more time on complex or sensitive cases.
在英国客户体验公司 ArvatoConnect，首席执行官 Debra Maxwell 告诉 CNBC，公司的目标是让 70% 的互动由技术处理，30% 由人工处理。
At U.K.-based customer experience company ArvatoConnect, CEO Debra Maxwell told CNBC the company aims for 70% of interactions to be handled by technology and 30% by people.
她表示，公司为英国政府采购机构——皇家商业服务署开发的一款 AI 工具，能以 97% 的准确率生成供应商生存能力评估草稿，减少了数小时的人工数据提取工作。更难案件带来的心智负担随着 AI 接管常规任务，人工客服可能面临更大比例的复杂案件——并在技术失灵时被迫填补空缺。客服人员面临的压力正值行业工作量上升的报道之际。
One AI tool it developed for the U.K. government's procurement agency, the Crown Commercial Service, generates draft supplier viability assessments with 97% accuracy, she said, reducing the need for hours of manual data extraction. The mental load of harder cases As AI takes on routine tasks, human agents may be left dealing with a greater share of complicated cases — and be required to pick up the slack when the technology fails. The pressure on customer-service staff comes amid reports of rising workloads across the industry.
根据 MaxContact 发布的《2025/26 英国联络中心 KPI 基准洞察报告》，超过一半受访的联络中心决策者表示客服工作量增加，比例从 2024 年的约 40% 上升，尽管该调查未确定推动这一增长的原因。“相对简单的任务能在更繁重的任务之间提供一点心理喘息空间”Amanda Jones 伦敦国王学院研究组织行为与未来工作的伦敦国王学院学者 Amanda Jones 专攻工作强化——即工作随时间推移变得更繁重的过程。
According to MaxContact's 2025/26 U.K. Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report, more than half of surveyed contact-center decision-makers said agent workloads had increased, up from around 40% in 2024, although the survey doesn't establish what is driving the rise. [R]elatively straightforward tasks can provide a bit of psychological respite between more demanding onesAmanda JonesKing's College London Amanda Jones, who researches organizational behavior and the future of work at King's College London, specializes in work intensification — the process by which jobs become more demanding over time.
她告诉 CNBC，如果人工客服越来越多地只剩下最棘手的互动，AI 可能会让呼叫中心的工作变得更加紧张。
She told CNBC that AI could make call-center work even more intense if human agents are increasingly left with the toughest interactions.
“等客户联系到真人时，可能已经很沮丧了，”她说。“我们有时会忽略一点：相对简单的任务能在更繁重的任务之间提供一点心理喘息。如果这些任务消失了，即使工作总量没变，工作日的强度也可能大幅增加。”琼斯警告说，生产率提高也可能带来更高强度的绩效指标。随着常规任务实现自动化，员工可能失去积累应对更繁重工作所需经验的机会。
"Some customers may already be frustrated by the time they reach that human," she said. "One thing we sometimes overlook is that relatively straightforward tasks can provide a bit of psychological respite between more demanding ones. If those disappear, the intensity of the working day could increase considerably, even if the overall volume of work doesn't." Jones cautioned that productivity gains may also bring more intense performance targets. And as routine tasks are automated, workers could lose opportunities to develop the experience needed for more demanding work.
“因此，我们可能最终会要求员工承担更繁重的工作，同时却减少了传统上帮助他们做好准备的经验积累机会，”她说。
"So, we could end up expecting people to perform more demanding work while simultaneously reducing the experiences that traditionally helped prepare them for it," she said.
人性化服务 阿尔瓦托连接公司的麦克斯韦尔认为，随着员工处理更复杂的案件，平均处理时长可能需要增加。
The human touch ArvatoConnect's Maxwell argued that average handling times may need to increase as employees take on more complex cases.
“我们评估的是[人工]坐席是否理解了客户需求、运用了合理判断并达成了正确解决方案，”她说。“而不是他们是否遵循了话术，或达成了任意设定的时长指标。”哈里斯看到了AI工具的优势，尽管偶尔的系统故障会制造更多工作。但她担心，推动自动化最终是以牺牲客户体验为代价的。
"We assess whether [human] agents understood the customer's needs, exercised sound judgement and reached the right resolution," she said. "Not whether they followed a script or hit an arbitrary time target." Harris sees the upsides of AI tools, despite occasional system glitches that create more work. But she worries that the push to automate is coming, ultimately, at the expense of customer experience.
“作为一个国家，我认为我们专注于把事情做得更快，选择数量而非质量……导致客户对AI被强推给每个人感到厌烦，”她说。
"As a country, I think we are focusing on getting things done faster and choosing quantity over quality … resulting in customers being fed up with the way AI is being pushed on everyone," she said.
香农也看到了使用AI的潜在好处，但认为它永远不应取代真正的客户服务。
Shannon also sees the potential benefits of using AI, but doesn't think it should ever replace real customer service.
“我相信人卖货给人；用AI你体验不到这一点，”她说。“我会多付出一点。AI能给那种感觉吗？能让人感觉真诚吗？”
"I believe people buy from people; with AI you don't get to experience that," she said. "I go the extra mile. Can AI give that feeling? Can it feel genuine?"