Automation promised a golden age of efficiency. Replace a chunk of the workforce with AI, cut costs, boost output, and watch the bottom line grow – at least, that is the theory fuelling boardroom decisions worldwide.
In early 2023, Klarna’s CEO made global headlines by revealing Swedish fintech would shrink its workforce by 40% – from 5,527 employees to just 3,422 within two years – thanks to AI. The biggest cuts? Customer success and support, where a chatbot replaced 700 agents and solved cases nine minutes faster than humans.
Klarna was far from alone. IBM swapped out hundreds of HR roles for AI agents. Microsoft announced one of 2025’s largest layoff waves, 15,000 jobs, pledging to channel savings straight into AI integration. Hertz, the car rental company, has rolled out an AI system that photographs cars before and after rentals, automating damage inspections and sparking debate over fairness for customers.
But there is a twist. By 2025, Klarna was hiring again, admitting what customers already knew: service quality had slipped, and human touch was missing.
All these cases from different industries tell the same story: efficiency gains only go so far without the human touch.
Knowing What to Automate and What to Keep Human
Deciding where to bring in automation is not as simple as “tech is faster.” It is a balancing act between efficiency and the irreplaceable value of human judgment. Even during the Industrial Revolution, when machines transformed production, shopkeepers knew their best customers by name. Automation sped up the making, but it was human connection that kept people coming back.
At Jooble, we devote significant attention to adopting new technologies and automating processes. Yet in communication with our clients and partners, the human touch always comes first. To decide where automation makes sense and where people must lead, we use our own decision-making filter, inspired by the Eisenhower Matrix – a method for prioritising tasks based on urgency and importance.
Our guiding principle is simple: if a task is repetitive, predictable, and has only a modest impact on outcomes, let the machines handle it. The rest stays in human hands.
Automation That Gives Time Back to People
At Jooble, a 14-person Customer Success team supports clients in 67 countries – a scale that demands smart use of automation. Our CRM, Salesforce, handles the background work: sending emails, scheduling calls, and updating portals. That leaves our managers free to spend their time where it matters most – in conversations that solve problems, uncover opportunities, and build lasting trust.
“We automate so our Customer Success Managers can spend more time talking to clients, understanding their needs, and solving real problems,” says Valeriia Mostytska, Jooble’s UK Country Manager.
Automation keeps the wheels turning, while people keep the relationships alive.
How We Apply This in Practice
At Jooble, we let automation handle the tasks that demand speed and precision: early warnings for changes in client feeds, auction fluctuations, job count variations, and CPC shifts. These systems work quietly in the background, spotting issues before they become problems.
Human work is where context, empathy, and trust matter most. Our Customer Success Managers spend their time talking to clients, understanding challenges, listening to feedback, and finding solutions that a script could never anticipate.
Automation runs on flows designed by people — and those people matter. Poorly tested scripts, especially those created without a mix of perspectives, can fail in unexpected ways. That is why we build our systems with global teams that bring not just diverse backgrounds, but diverse ways of thinking. It is this combination of smart tools and human insight that delivers consistent, high-quality service.
AI as a Partner, Not a Replacement
If automation runs on scripts, AI runs on training. It is not magic – it is a tool, and like a data model, its output is only as good as the training and oversight that shape it. Industry cases have already shown the risks of over-reliance: as seen earlier, even the most advanced companies have had to rehire after quality slipped.
The hype is not fading either. Over the past five years, searches for “AI” on Google have risen sharply, proving it is still one of the hottest topics in business and tech.
“AI” search term trend for the past 5 years according to Google Trends
At Jooble, we use AI to amplify our people, not replace them. In job search, for example, we:
The results are measurable:
“We have seen AI make job ads dramatically more visible, but visibility alone is not enough. At Jooble, we pair those results with the human understanding that turns visibility into real hires,” says Valeriia Mostytska, UK Country Manager.
Human Touch Still Wins
AI may be revolutionary, but in a world of algorithms, people still value being understood. In Customer Success, that means reading between the lines, sensing what is not said, and adapting to cultural nuances – skills no chatbot has mastered.
Technology can open the door, but it is human connection that closes the deal and builds loyalty. The future belongs to teams that use AI to clear the noise so they can focus on what only humans can deliver: trust, empathy, and solutions that stick.
