The Klarna case exemplifies a structural shift now reshaping customer-facing work: AI handles routine queries whilst human workers absorb the complex remainder, but as contractors rather than employees. This hybrid model—AI managing volume, gig workers handling exceptions—represents the path of least resistance for cost reduction. Companies face no technical barrier to maintaining full-time teams; they face a financial incentive to fragment them. The Guardian's reporting reveals that labour economists largely agree AI will not eliminate jobs wholesale but will dismantle full-time employment where feasible, pushing knowledge workers into precarious arrangements that were once confined to rideshare and delivery. For CX teams already operating within Zendesk, Freshdesk or Salesforce ecosystems, this raises an uncomfortable question: are you building infrastructure that will eventually support your own workforce's transition to contractor status? The evidence suggests yes. Mercor alone hired 30,000 contractors in 2025 for AI training; nursing platforms have reached billion-dollar valuations by replicating Uber's model; and 39% of the US workforce already performs gig work, with projections reaching 50% by 2027.
The implications for CX professionals are immediate and material. If your organisation adopts AI-powered routing and deflection—standard practice across modern platforms—you are simultaneously creating the operational conditions that justify contractor-based staffing. The Klarna CEO's explicit framing of gig customer service as equivalent to "jumping on and working for Klarna" mirrors the language that seduced early Uber drivers: flexibility, autonomy, on-demand income. The reality documented by Human Rights Watch is starkly different: unpredictable hours, algorithmic control over task assignment and pay rates, no workers' compensation, and effective hourly rates that collapse when unpaid waiting time is factored in. For support team leads, this means the efficiency gains you report from AI implementation may be systematically undervalued if they depend on shifting labour costs to contractors rather than reducing absolute workload.
The window for policy intervention is narrowing. Seventeen US states have already exempted gig nursing platforms from staffing agency regulations; the International Labour Organization is discussing a global treaty on gig worker standards, but governments have historically deferred to corporate claims that regulation is operationally impossible. Simet's observation—that "it's still a lucrative labor model even if you have to comply with some regulations"—cuts to the core issue: companies are choosing this path because it is profitable, not because it is necessary. For CX leaders, the strategic question is whether your organisation will proactively establish contractor protections and benefits, or wait until regulatory pressure forces the issue. The former positions you as an employer of choice in a tightening labour market; the latter leaves you exposed to both talent retention crises and reputational risk as the gig economy's true costs become impossible to ignore.
Gig workers are endlessly exploited. AI could make more of us share their fate The Guardian