Verizon CEO Dan Schulman says AI will take over a “large percentage” of customer service

Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said artificial intelligence will take over a “large percentage” of customer service work, arguing the technology is already improving how the carrier resolves customer issues. Speaking at the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, Schulman also told the audience that Verizon has been experimenting with AI agents that are replacing some customer service representatives, and that the agents delivered customer service satisfaction results that were 1,280 basis points better than before.

Schulman framed the effort as part of a broader push to differentiate Verizon through an “end-to-end customer experience,” not just faster service. He said customers should receive help in stores quickly, and that when they call customer service they should get empathetic responses that match what the customer experienced in a store and what appears on their bill. He said Verizon is focusing on improving “hundreds if not thousands” of elements involved in that end-to-end experience.

In Schulman’s description of how AI would change the work itself, the “rote stuff” can be handled by AI agents, while more complex problems would involve collaboration between an AI system and human staff. He said Verizon is seeing that blend deliver better outcomes than either AI or humans alone, positioning AI as a way to scale responses while reserving human attention for harder cases.

The CEO also suggested the customer service workforce will shift over time from people mainly talking to customers and looking up simple answers to people helping configure and improve the AI. “We’re going to start shifting from people talking to customers and looking up simple things” to training systems, ensuring data is clean, and writing procedures the AI should follow, according to remarks attributed to Schulman.

The broader market context is that other research firms expect AI to eliminate a large share of customer service roles. In the same report, CX Dive cited Forrester’s view that AI could cut the number of customer service jobs in half by 2030, with fewer roles handling easy questions as automation improves. The implication for employers is that the remaining positions may be more specialized and more difficult for AI to replace.

Verizon has previously tied its customer support modernization to AI in both digital tools and service operations. In a June 24, 2025 company announcement, Verizon described a customer experience transformation meant to improve support across customer care, digital services, and retail, including features such as a “Customer Champion” for complex issues, expanded live support hours and chat, and an updated My Verizon app with an AI-powered assistant.

The company also markets AI-driven contact center tooling to help customers resolve routine inquiries through conversational self-service, while still offering escalation to live agents for sensitive or unresolved cases. Verizon’s Virtual Agent product, for example, describes an AI assistant that retrieves answers from knowledge bases and business systems, supports escalation to human agents, and is designed to maintain conversation context.

Still, key details remain unclear from the public remarks. Verizon did not specify what “a large percentage” means in measurable terms, which customer service functions are most affected, the rollout timeline, or how many representative roles could change. It also did not disclose what types of issues the AI agents handled during the reported three-month experiment, how CSAT was measured across channels, or what guardrails are in place when systems encounter sensitive or disputed cases.

What to watch next is whether Verizon will provide more concrete, auditable metrics as it scales AI agents, and whether it will expand the human-AI handoff model into additional call types and support channels. Given the stated linkage between customer experience and differentiation, the company’s next update on customer satisfaction trends and operational performance may determine how quickly investors and customers conclude that the AI shift is improving service rather than simply reducing staffing costs.