By Phil Tomlinson, SVP of Global Offerings for TaskUs
The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry faces a turning point sparked by slowing growth, increasing specialization, the rise of GenAI, and the emergence of agentic AI. In response, adaptive BPOs are choosing to:
- Rapidly evolve service offerings to high-value, specialized solutions.
- Reskill employees and integrate AI to modernize their workforce.
- Transform their customer experience with AI, making it more personalized at scale.
- Forge strategic partnerships to take full advantage of agentic AI’s promise.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these trends to see how they are helping to shape the future of BPO.
AI Reshapes BPO Service Strategy
BPO growth has slowed in recent years because of global economic challenges and uncertainty, onshore to low-cost offshore shifting of work by many large companies, and AI’s automation of simpler core care functions. This automation of core care will continue, making a rebound in growth there unlikely. Slower growth has increased competition for customers and put pressure on pricing and margins.
BPOs are responding. First, they will keep applying AI and other new technologies to automate core customer service, even though this contributes to slow growth. By intelligently automating lower-risk areas, they position themselves to lead the introduction of new automation approaches and technology to customers.
They are also shifting capabilities toward more complex, harder-to-automate services. For example, trust and safety services are growing in areas like content moderation and financial crimes and compliance. And they are investing in operational efficiency and developing deep expertise in specific service lines and industries.
Funding for AI large language models creates demand for specialized AI services, such as AI safety and annotating/cleaning AI training data. By collaborating with AI companies, BPOs can bring new, higher-value services to customers. Finally, BPOs are creating specialized, high-value offerings that are less prone to automation, such as industry-specific compliance services for healthcare and financial services, for example.
AI Powers Workforce Transformation
As a BPO’s offerings and areas of specialization increase, its workforce will need to keep pace and be increasingly adaptable and resilient. BPOs that make reskilling, continuous education, and employee well-being paramount will keep pace with emerging opportunities. Those who remain at the forefront of AI innovation and workflow integration will be able to offer ample growth opportunities for their employees.
AI itself is an ally in workforce modernization. Agentic AI’s ability to search, find, analyze, and make informed decisions within set guidelines will automate routine employee experience tasks. This will make it easier for teams to focus on high-value, complex interactions where human social skills are paramount for success. This shift will boost employee engagement, satisfaction, and sense of well-being while making better use of employees’ skills and expertise.
BPOs will need to train employees to collaborate effectively with AI agents and provide them with the tools to do so. And the growth of AI services will lead to new skill opportunity areas. Take “red teaming” — combining trust and safety expertise with the growing demand for adversarial testing. Capitalizing on this opportunity requires training existing employees to handle subjective processes that require critical thinking, such as intentionally testing the model’s boundaries and weaknesses.
Some newer types of work will require skills that may not be a matter of simple training. As LLMs run out of public training data from the internet, companies must invest heavily in building private datasets. That’s not a skill you can train a teammate for—it requires recruiting people with master’s or Ph. Ph.D.-level expertise in various fields to answer complex chemistry questions or interpret Shakespeare in ways that go beyond what’s easily found on the internet. It’s an entirely different business model.
AI Makes Personalized Experiences at Scale a Reality
The next quantum leap for AI, agentic AI, will build on GenAI’s flexibility and intuitive user interaction. By adding to it the rigor and predictability of traditional programming, agentic AI will usher in rapid customer experience improvements as it taps its own data sets, company stores of knowledge, and real-time interactions to make decisions and act on behalf of customers.
This “best of both worlds” approach will elevate today’s customer experience in tangible ways. Voice-based interaction at scale will become economically feasible and allow a wider range of automated customer service while keeping human oversight and expertise in the loop. It will also make truly personalized service at scale a real thing, not an elusive goal. And human experts will be able to focus on customers that need — or prefer — human-to-human interaction.
BPO Partnerships Unlock Agentic AI’s Potential
The future of agentic AI hinges on collaboration. No single company can independently design, build, and implement comprehensive AI solutions. Strategic partnerships will be essential for achieving success.
BPOs are uniquely positioned to act as a vital link between AI technology providers and enterprises. With their deep understanding of workflows and customer experiences, they can ensure AI development aligns with brand values and operational requirements. BPOs can also assist in rigorous testing and validation, building client confidence in AI-driven solutions.
By adopting a partnership-driven approach, BPOs will play a pivotal role in shaping and scaling agentic AI, unlocking its full potential for innovation and transformation.
While the landscape is changing fast, BPOs can stay ahead of the change by being adaptable and focused on AI-led innovation. By embracing agentic AI, delivering exceptional customer experiences, and forming strategic partnerships, they can offer solutions their customers value – and need. Investing in people and harnessing technology for sustainable growth and competitive advantage is the best way forward. Companies that do this will not just keep up—they’ll lead the way and shape the future of BPO.
