📞 The biggest blocker to “AI in the contact center” still isn’t the tech. It’s the human friction around it.
In this CX Today interview, Danny Wareham (Firgun) calls out a pattern I keep seeing: FOMO-led AI rollouts that solve the wrong problem, then get quietly bypassed by agents because it dents autonomy and confidence.
The smarter move is swapping compulsion for curiosity.
Why are people resisting? What’s breaking in the workflow? What would make the tool feel like support, not surveillance?
There’s also a bigger leadership miss here: if AI is only framed as OPEX reduction, you’ll never see the strategic upside.
IKEA used automation to reduce inbound volume by 47%… then re-skilled agents to meet the higher-value demand that remained and reportedly drove $1B in new revenue.
That’s the real play: use AI to remove the low-value load, then redesign the role around judgment, empathy, and revenue impact.
So what’s your 2026 agent strategy: “reduce cost per contact”, or “increase value per conversation”?
