Customer Service Didn’t Die in the Age of AI — It Got More Human

There’s a quiet myth floating around modern organizations: that automation, AI, and self-service tools have replaced the need for great customer service. The dashboards look cleaner. The response times look faster. The chatbots are polite enough.

And yet — something feels off.

I’ve sat in enough executive meetings, ops reviews, and leadership offsites to recognize the pattern: we optimized the system, but forgot the person inside it.

As a former Amazonian and longtime Executive Assistant, customer centricity isn’t an abstract principle to me. It’s muscle memory. It’s how decisions get made when no one is watching. And in an AI-powered world, it’s no longer a “soft skill.” It’s a competitive advantage hiding in plain sight.