Our ‘What’s Happening With Customer Contact in 2025?’ report recently revealed that 47% of contact centres are already charging forward with AI being a key part of their upcoming strategy, whilst a further 36% are exploring and currently evaluating their AI options.
It’s certainly an exciting time to be working in CX, but none of these plans will truly come to fruition if your people don’t believe in the journey and aren’t educated enough to understand what AI really means for them, their roles, and the future of the contact centre.
That’s what we asked the change management experts Afshan Kinder, Jeremy Watkin, Pete Dunn and Perry Fletcher to find out how the very best leaders are bringing everyone along on their AI journey and moving forward together.
Lean Into Honest Conversations About “Will AI Replace Me?”
Don’t deny that agents will immediately think their jobs are in jeopardy!
The first step on your AI education journey is therefore to address what’s on the minds of most people today: “Will AI replace me?”
“Take the time to show your teams how AI can work alongside humans to support them in doing the mundane work, allowing your team to focus on the customer conversation.
Also share with them different ways your company will be deploying AI; how it will enhance the customer experience and how it will make a team member’s job easier.” – Afshan Kinder, Thought Leader and co-author of three books – including ‘Call Centers for Dummies’
You can even draw parallels with the conversation around outsourcing, if this is something you are doing or have done previously, to help explain the context of AI being part of your wider workforce and even talking about AI agents as colleagues.
And if the possibility of redundancies is looming, be honest about that too!
It’s far better to say, “We’re not considering any redundancies right now, but this will be reviewed in 6 months’ time once the impact of these AI changes are more widely understood” – rather than lie to everyone and have to do a U-turn. It’s all about transparency – not burying your head in the sand!
To find out what the key factors of effective communication are and how best to apply them in your contact centre, read our article: The 7 Cs of Effective Communication
You’ve Got to Communicate the “Why” for Each Individual and Their Changing Role
Alongside this, it’s critically important to make sure every individual understands the why behind the changes and how they will be personally affected. Applying change models like ADKAR to your conversations can really help here.
“Don’t wing it! Using something like the ADKAR change model can help you have all-round better conversations with your team, as it gives people the opportunity to understand not only what changes are happening, but what’s going to happen to them, how they can embrace it and change themselves.
It’s about driving that intrinsic desire to change, because pushing people through change guarantees resistance.” – Pete Dunn, Customer Success Manager at evaluagent
The ADKAR change model is a goal-oriented change management framework of five key stages that individuals must go through to successfully adopt and sustain change:
- Awareness: Understanding the need for change.
- Desire: The motivation to participate in and support the change.
- Knowledge: Knowing how to change and what is required.
- Ability: The capability to implement the change.
- Reinforcement: Ensuring that the change is sustained over time
Help Agents Get Excited About the Doors That AI Opens for Their Careers Too
That being said, it’s also about bringing energy into the conversation and creating excitement for the opportunities ahead.
But this doesn’t mean rushing in with the latest bells and whistles to try and impress them! As sometimes you really do have to go slow to move fast!
One way to put this into action is to make sure your team’s first taste of AI isn’t a fully-fledged AI contact centre solution. Instead, why not ask them to play around with Co-Pilot on Microsoft, or ask a few questions in ChatGPT?
It’s all about building in exploration time, so everyone can see what it can do. You could even ask them to complete a business task by asking ChatGPT “How can we make our customers happier?” and have a light discussion about what it has come up with.
It’s about giving them the time to get comfortable with it all, so they come on the journey with you. This then sets the stage for introducing the AI solutions you want to implement into your customer journey, but make sure to tread carefully here too.
For example, to get the team involved in demos of new solutions as early as possible with the technology you are actually considering investing in.
“Bringing your team on your AI journey with you is not about jumping right in by saying “Start using this new tool we’ve bought” but rather taking a longer lead time and saying “Here’s a new tool we’re thinking about. We haven’t spent any money on it yet, we’re just trying to see if it has any benefit, so let’s test it and talk about it together.”” – Jeremy Watkin, Director of Customer Experience and Support at NumberBarn
Beyond this, it’s also useful to have a conversation about what AI can’t do and encourage agents to rethink where they develop their skills and adapt their careers accordingly.
As the “simple leaves the business”, it’s about emphasizing the need to invest in building those advanced skills to handle complex situations which includes higher EQ, critical thinking and good judgement.
After all, we are all being challenged around what it means to be human right now, as Sandra Thompson shared at the latest Women in CX UnConference in Berlin
Another way to shape these conversations is to complete an internal skill/will assessment – just like we saw at Simplyhealth – to help address any resistance at its root cause.
For advice on creating truly transparent and engaging career pathways in your contact centre, read our article: How to Define Career Paths in Your Contact Centre
Make Sure Your Leaders Are Truly Leading From the Front
Of course, this all falls apart if your leaders aren’t practising what they preach too!
It can really help if your leaders model AI use in their own work, such as when they use AI and when it is not required. For example, how they streamline their day through the use of AI, with summary meeting notes, creation of agendas, project plans, PowerPoint updates, etc.
Leaders also need the right skill set to drive real positive change with AI to build trust with their team in the long term.
“I think the problem a lot of organizations are seeing is that they are drowning in data but starving for action! With AI in place, of course you’re going to be able to produce more reports – but that’s only one part of the puzzle.
Alongside this, leaders need the critical awareness that it only works if your data is cleansed, you’ve got a good knowledge management system, and you’ve got good data governance in place – but they’ve also got to have the soft skills to bring it to life.
In response to this reality, we’ve already seen a few of our clients set up academies to foster this much-needed commercial awareness for this new AI world – with an emphasis on how leaders can drive impact and ROI – not just generate more data. You really can’t just plug in and play if you want to succeed!” – Perry Fletcher, Practice Lead at Douglas Jackson
…And make sure you’re always shouting loudly about what’s going well too! As with any new change, have an internal PR programme in place where wins are regularly highlighted across the contact centre. This will help to keep up the momentum!
To find out what sets the very best team leaders apart from the rest, read our article: 7 Things Creative Team Leaders Do Better Than the Rest
What Have You Tried to Kick-Start the AI Education Phase in Your Contact Centre?
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With thanks to the following people for sharing their thoughts for this article:
- Afshan Kinder, Thought Leader and co-author of three books – including ‘Call Centers for Dummies’
- Jeremy Watkin, Director of Customer Experience and Support at NumberBarn
- Perry Fletcher, Practice Lead – Operational Support- Resource Planning, AI, Marketing, Data, Analytics and Insight at Douglas Jackson
- Pete Dunn, Customer Success Manager at evaluagent
If you are interested in learning more about improving your contact centre, check out our webinar: Raising the Bar for CX in 2026
If you are looking for more advice on managing change and implementing technology successfully in contact centres, read these articles next:
- How to Manage Big Changes Well in the Contact Centre
- Can AI Really Handle Customer Complaints?
- 10 New Ways Tech Is Helping Agents Right Now
Author: Megan Jones
Published On: 5th Jan 2026 - Last modified: 7th Jan 2026
Read more about - Technology, Afshan Kinder, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Career, Change Management, Communication Skills, Employee Engagement, Employee Experience (EX), EvaluAgent, Jeremy Watkin, Leadership, Pete Dunn, Technology Enablement Strategy, Technology Roadmap, Top Story, Training and Coaching
