The vendor pitch is familiar by now: AI agents that work like your best employees, available 24/7, never burn out, never call in sick.
But according to Gartner VP Analyst Kathy Ross, buying into that framing is exactly where a lot of customer service leaders are starting to slip up.
In a recent conversation with CX Today, Ross outlined new Gartner research recommending that customer service and support leaders manage AI agents as tools rather than teammates.
It’s a position that runs counter to growing C-suite sentiment, with Gartner’s own data putting the share of CEOs who already view AI agents as employees at 39%.
The problem, Ross explains, is the scale of consequence when something goes wrong. A human agent might serve 30 to 45 customers in a shift. An AI agent could be handling thousands simultaneously, meaning a single failure can ripple across your customer base within minutes, as she explains:
“If we treat this technology like human talent in a service and support organization, it’s gonna be a mistake. It could lead to unnecessary organizational disruptions as we think about placing AI oversight potentially in the wrong hands.”
Ross recommends assigning AI agent oversight to operations and technology leaders rather than frontline people managers, whose core strengths sit in human development rather than systems management. The two groups need to work closely, but the accountability line has to be drawn deliberately.
On the workforce question, Ross pushes back on the either/or framing. Automating high-volume work isn’t a threat to human agents, it’s what creates the bandwidth for them to have the kinds of conversations that build loyalty and drive growth.
