A.I. agents revolutionize holiday staffing with data-driven hiring solutions

Every October and November, brick-and-mortar and online retailers stock up on temporary workers to meet the spiking demand of the holiday shopping season. However, this year’s workforce isn’t just human; A.I. agents are operating in the background, helping automate customer support tickets and train workers faster and more effectively.

Seasonal worker demand this year is 12 percent lower than its peak in 2021. While Amazon hired 250,000 workers this fall, many of them seasonal, broader market data shows a decline in the need for seasonal workers.

Generative A.I. is redefining the high-pressure training environment of a traditional holiday workforce, making continuous learning more effective. According to John Scott, head of learning and design at MasterClass, generative A.I. chatbots can enhance human interaction in the training process, enabling workers to ask questions without fear of judgment.

A.I. agents have the potential to address a key challenge of seasonal hiring: creating a logistical nightmare for retailers between rapidly training, onboarding, and supervising new employees and handling customer interactions during the busiest shopping season.

However, implementing A.I. in place of well-trained humans during the busiest shopping season has its risks. Missteps like “hallucinating promotions” demonstrate how unsupervised A.I. can misalign with brand strategy and erode trust.

Already, Yuma AI’s top merchants are automating 40 to 60 percent of customer support tickets, improving service for customers and making the value-added work of human support agents more interesting.