Contact Center AI Isn't Making the Work Disappear
TechTarget, Thursday, October 22nd, 2026
ICMI co-founder Brad Cleveland says contact center AI helps, but most leaders report workloads rising, not falling.
Ahead of ICMI's Contact Center Expo, ICMI founding partner Brad Cleveland says contact centers sit somewhere between vendor hype and reality.
AI delivers real value in summarization, agent assistance, knowledge retrieval, translation and routine interactions, but most organizations are still working out integration, quality safeguards and staff comfort.
When he polls audiences, most leaders say workloads are increasing.
He cites unmet demand surfacing as access improves, growing product complexity, more channels and more sophisticated fraud, plus a self-service paradox: the more routine work automation absorbs, the more complex the work left for humans.