Guest Blog: “Zhuzhing Up” Humans in the Contact Center

This week we feature an article by Chris Connolly that discusses how assistive AI blends with human-only qualities to create a new category of “superagents.”
Technology replacing humans. That’s what we all fear. Yet bank employees did not disappear with the advent of the ATM. Airline agents are still at check-in counters to guide passengers after self-service kiosks and to arrange complicated ticketing. Their roles have evolved, with the human performing critical value-added functions and machines handling rote tasks.
While machines are becoming more intelligent, humans aren’t moving out of the picture yet. It’s true that in China, in a case of life imitating art, state-run television is testing the world’s first AI news anchors more than 30 years after the Max Headroom television satire. But a much-ballyhooed automated hotel in Japan recently added more humans and scaled back on its droids due to inefficiency and cost-effectiveness, as did a grocery store