Technology

What’s the Difference Between a Short- and Long-Term AI Strategy?

A road sign with short term long term words on sky background

Published On: 27th Oct 2026 08:00

As we all know, many leaders are under pressure to demonstrate fast returns on their AI investments right now. Yet there is a growing risk that if they focus too heavily on short-term wins, they’ll miss out on the bigger opportunities to be had too.

The reality is that AI can deliver immediate benefits, but the contact centres that are seeing the greatest long-term value are not simply automating existing work; they are redesigning workflows, rethinking roles, and more, to ultimately create better experiences for agents and customers alike.

So, what is the difference between a short- and long-term AI strategy? And how do you get the balance right? We spoke to Justin Robbins to find out!

Did you know? This conversation also continues in our webinar on “Are These Adoption Mistakes Derailing Your AI Strategy?”

Quick Wins Are Only the Beginning of the Journey – Not the Destination

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is treating AI as a simple performance booster rather than recognizing the organizational changes required to unlock its full potential.

The lesson is simple: quick wins matter, but they should be viewed as the beginning of the journey – rather than the destination.

The Best Ways to Get ROI From Your AI in the Short Term

With that in mind, here are some of the best areas to focus on if you’re looking to make headway with those early short-term wins:

Focus on the Biggest Bottlenecks of Repetitive Effort

When looking for fast returns, the best place to start is often where agents are experiencing the greatest amount of repetitive effort. High-volume activities create natural opportunities for AI to save time, improve consistency, and increase productivity.

Therefore, rather than trying to transform the entire operation overnight, successful contact centres identify the areas creating the biggest bottlenecks and address those first. In the contact centre, these friction points often include information searches and manual documentation.

For example, Simplyhealth have been using Einstein GPT to support agents in writing emails, which has led to massive time savings, as Amy Elliott, Salesforce & Digital Service Manager, explains:

“We have Salesforce Einstein in place, which allows our team to use ChatGPT to generate email responses to our customers. Once it has been generated, the human agent simply checks the email and hits send.

This initiative has significantly sped up the creation of emails and improved our response times, as on average it takes just 1½ minutes to curate and check an email – resulting in a 75% time saving each week.”

Use AI to Significantly Reduce After-Call Work

Another clear opportunity for immediate ROI is in reducing after-call work (ACW).

After all, the administrative work following each customer interaction can consume a significant portion of an agent’s day. By automating elements of this process, contact centres can help agents return to serving customers much more quickly.

The value extends beyond immediate time-savings and productivity too, as reduced wait times improve customer experiences, while agents spend more time doing meaningful work – rather than completing administrative tasks.

It’s always worth starting with the basics when improving ACW. For advice on this, read our article: How to Make After-Call Work More Efficient – Without AI

Improve Knowledge Retrieval

Knowledge management has long been a challenge for contact centres. Even those with extensive knowledge bases often struggle with outdated content, inconsistent information, or low agent trust in the system.

AI therefore creates an opportunity to transform how information is accessed and used. Rather than searching through multiple systems or relying on personal notes, agents can now receive the right information at the exact right moment.

“When AI is helping agents receive the right information in a matter of seconds, that’s going to improve their handle time, boost their confidence, and ensure greater consistency across the operation.” – Justin Robbins, Founder & Principal Analyst at Metric Sherpa

This combination of efficiency, confidence, and consistency is why knowledge retrieval is often one of the earliest and most successful AI use cases.

Enhance Coaching With Interaction Summaries

Another key area where organizations can achieve rapid returns is interaction summarization – and not just in after-call work!

As we all know, managers, quality analysts, and agents spend countless hours documenting conversations and searching for context.

However, AI-generated summaries can help remove that burden. The result is not only time savings, but improved visibility into customer interactions and better, more targeted coaching.

Don’t just rely on AI coaching. For advice on this, read our article: Strike the Right Balance Between Human and AI Coaching

★★★★★

The Best Ways to Drive Long-Term Transformation

As we’ve already touched upon, there are lots of quick wins to be had and they do have their place. However, to achieve long-term success, leaders need to reimagine the entire customer journey and operating model.

There is no simple answer to this, but here are some projects to give you a flavour of where you can start focusing your efforts to drive long-term transformation:

Rework Knowledge Management for the AI Era

One long-term priority is improving knowledge management. AI can only perform as well as the information it accesses. After all, poor-quality content creates poor-quality outcomes.

As a result, leaders should carve out time to invest in governed, accurate, and trusted knowledge sources. Knowledge management may not feel as exciting as deploying new AI tools, but it forms the foundation for sustainable success.

For advice on getting your data right so you aren’t building on shaky foundations, read our article: How to Centralize Your Data – Before Scaling AI

Redesign Roles Around Human Strengths

Another important consideration is the changing role of the human. As AI takes over routine activities, agents will inevitably spend more time focusing on higher-value work. That includes problem-solving, recovery situations, relationship building, and decision-making.

The goal then should be not to replace human capability, but to elevate it. However, this doesn’t happen overnight, and you will need to redesign your frontline roles and give agents the training they need – sooner rather than later – to truly succeed. For example, in areas that create the most human value, such as empathy, creativity, and judgement.

For example, Oxfordshire County Council recently took the plunge to introduce a voice AI assistant that uses a language model to welcome customers, understand what they are asking for, and direct them to the appropriate team – in place of their traditional IVR.

And the results were immediate! On day one, calls to the switchboard dropped by 55%, with that figure now closer to 60%. This has freed up advisors who previously handled switchboard calls (and redirected confused customers) to give their time to supporting more specialist queries from others.

Reduce the Administrative Burden and Free Up Management Capacity

Leaders also stand to benefit significantly from AI, as taking steps to reduce administrative burdens can allow them to dedicate more time to coaching, developing agents, and driving adoption of new ways of working.

This will become increasingly important as technology evolves and contact centres need agents to continuously learn and adapt. Quite frankly, those that free up capacity and equally invest in management capability today will be better positioned to realize long-term AI benefits tomorrow.

Connect the Entire Customer Journey

Perhaps the most transformative opportunity lies in connecting customer experiences across the business. For years, CX leaders have talked about breaking down silos and improving cross-functional collaboration. Yet many continue to operate with competing priorities and disconnected objectives.

AI offers a chance to change this once and for all, creating greater visibility across the customer journey and exposing the downstream impact of decisions made elsewhere in the organization.

Justin Robbins, Founder & Principal Analyst at Metric Sherpa — Justin Robbins

“There is now finally more opportunity for us to have better visibility and understanding of what is happening at different points of our customers’ journey and therefore to better connect “the domino effect” of how a decision really does impact the customer journey further down the line.” – Justin Robbins, Founder & Principal Analyst at Metric Sherpa

★★★★★

Build Your Strategy Around Expensive Friction First

It’s clear AI brings lots of great opportunities to the table for both short- and long-term wins, making it incredibly difficult to decide where to start. One way to focus your efforts, however, is to identify your most expensive friction points first.

Quite simply, rather than beginning with technology… Begin with your problems!

Questions worth asking include:

Where are agents losing the most time to avoidable effort?
Where do customers experience inconsistency or delay?
Which tasks occur at the highest volumes?
Where could you better support improve both agent confidence and customer outcomes?
Does your contact centre have the discipline and leadership commitment needed to sustain change?

The answers to these questions alone will often reveal where AI can create the greatest impact.

Importantly, this approach shifts the conversation away from technology capabilities and towards business outcomes; ultimately building the foundations for sustained success tomorrow.

If you are looking for more information on developing your contact centre AI strategy, read these articles next:

Author
Megan Jones

Megan Jones, Editor, Call Centre Helper

Megan interviews inspiring people across the contact centre industry to capture these amazing voices and turn them into best practice articles – covering all elements of what it takes to deliver truly outstanding employee and customer experiences.

Connect with Megan on LinkedIn