This Location Watch report shows a clear shift in UK outsourcing: from cost-driven offshoring to value-led, tech-enabled delivery. With budgets flat and service expectations rising, UK brands are turning to AI, automation, and selective onshoring to improve quality, resilience, and customer trust. As AI narrows the offshore cost gap, the UK is re-emerging as a competitive, future-ready CX hub.
AI regulation has become a boardroom priority. As the US and UK hesitate, the EU surges ahead with the world’s first comprehensive AI law, the EU AI Act, set to shape global standards just as GDPR did for data privacy.
Customers in 2025 want their problems solved quickly but also with care. According to MaxContact’s latest Voice of the UK Consumer report, 70% of people want to speak to a human when explaining specific situations, and 42% have switched providers due to poor contact centre experiences. At the same time, 45% are comfortable with AI but nearly 36% remain uncomfortable, especially older demographics.
Research from Stanford, MIT, and NUS shows people disclose more openly to AI than to humans on sensitive issues like money, health, and relationships. The reason is simple: AI doesn’t judge. For CX leaders, judgment-free AI agents can unlock trust, accuracy, and more honest customer interactions.
Six months on from our “Year of Difficult Conversations” whitepaper, a clear paradox has emerged. AI in contact centres delivers rapid wins, but without careful planning, those gains risk eroding into burnout, attrition, and declining customer satisfaction. This ‘AI Paradox’ shows why sustainable transformation depends on balancing efficiency with agent wellbeing.
In health & wellbeing, every interaction matters. As digital healthtech and rising expectations put pressure on contact centres, leading brands are turning cost centres into care hubs. By blending automation with empathy, they scale securely while protecting the trust and human connection that define the wellbeing experience.
AI boosts contact centre efficiency fast but without safeguarding agents, early gains collapse into burnout, turnover, and falling CSAT. The answer is agentic AI: systems that handle tasks while empowering humans, sustaining productivity and long-term ROI.
Georgia is rapidly positioning itself as a rising outsourcing destination, combining low costs, strong government incentives and a multilingual talent pool. With labour up to 50% cheaper than Central Europe and IT exports topping $1 billion in 2024, the country is attracting global players such as Majorel, Concentrix and EPAM Systems. Supported by modern infrastructure and a culture rooted in hospitality, Georgia is moving beyond call centres into fintech, AI and digital services, making it one of Europe’s most dynamic new hubs for nearshore and offshore delivery.
Pure Voice AI is the most disruptive contact centre use case yet, replacing agents for certain interactions with fully autonomous, human-like conversations. Beyond efficiency, it promises 24/7 service, smoother demand, and seamless multilingual support, making it a transformative shift for customer experience.
AI-powered hands-free conversations remove admin tasks, letting agents focus fully on the customer for faster, smarter, and more human interactions
As contact centre queries grow more complex, Agent Assist AI supports agents in real time, analysing calls, retrieving context, and guiding conversations. It reduces cognitive load, speeds up onboarding, and boosts satisfaction, helping transform contact centres into proactive value generators.
Are we entering the era of “perma-peak”? As demand surges become less predictable, this article explores how contact centres can stay agile with real-time planning, flexible resourcing, and smarter demand management.