"Did someone drop the ball?" is the wrong question when an escalation slips through the cracks. The right question: "Did we design a system where the ball could be seen at all?" @StacieBairdHX on how automating the routine tickets erodes the instinct to spot the non-routine ones — HX Podcast Episode 2 out now.
 

Key data points:

  • Klarna cut "hundreds" of support roles for AI, saw quality decline, began rehiring1
    • CEO admitted "prioritizing cost over experience"1
  • Salesforce cut support from ~9,000 to ~5,0002
    • CEO said AI handles about half of cases, meaning humans still do the other half2
  • Gartner projects 50% of companies that cut support for AI will rehire by 20273
  • Visier analysis of 2.4M workers: highest boomerang rate since 2018 (Visier, 2026)4

Footnotes

  1. Orgvue Survey, 2025 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Forrester Research, Predictions 2026: The Future of Work ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. Robert Half Survey, 2026 (via CNBC) ↩ ↩2

  4. Careerminds Survey of 600 HR Professionals, 2026 ↩ ↩2

  5. Harvard Business Review, Executive Survey, 2025 ↩

  6. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. AI-Attributed Layoffs, 2026 ↩

Stacie

For more episodes, visit StacieBaird.com.

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