Business

AI agents will replace human employees unless companies make a major effort to upskill their workers, says the majority of business leaders

Published

2 months ago

June 30, 2025

Companies are scrambling to introduce AI agents into their workflow at a rapid clip. But workers are afraid that this tech revolution may actually lead to their own professional demise, and a new study shows that they have good reason to be worried.

Around 87% of business leaders believe AI agents will displace workers unless companies are willing to upskill their employees, according to management consulting firm KPMG’s latest AI Quarterly Pulse Survey. That includes providing additional training, creating new goals, or even changing their roles.

“Our clients are no longer asking ‘if’ AI will transform their business, they’re asking ‘how fast’ it can be deployed,” notes Todd Lohr, head of ecosystems at KPMG. “This isn’t just about technology adoption, it’s about fundamental business transformation that requires reimagining how work gets done and how it is measured.”

The deployment of AI agents across organizations has tripled since the fourth quarter of last year, according to the report. Around 82% of business leaders believe that AI agents will become valuable contributors within the next year, and the same number believe these agents will completely change the business landscape in the next two years.

CEOs have recently become bolder about saying that AI could lead to leaner human workforces. The CEO of Anthropic said earlier this year that AI could eliminate half of entry level roles. The CEO of language learning app Duolingo told staff in April that they could only hire a new person if they first proved the task couldn’t be done with AI. And Meta recently announced plans to replace up to 90% of its human employees who review the platform’s privacy and societal risks with AI.

Upskilling employees might be easier said than done, though. While two-thirds of leaders expect employees to update their AI skills, only a third say the companies they work for are providing policies around how the technology should be used, according to recent research from talent advisory The Adecco Group. A separate study from management consulting firm Oliver Wyman found that while 79% of workers want AI training, only 57% say such upskilling efforts made by their company have been inadequate.

“As employers, we have a responsibility to help prepare current and future workers for the transition to a new era of work,” writes Edwige Sacco, head of workforce innovation at KPMG. “Investments in human-centric change management, modern ways of learning, proactive upskilling, and new human-AI collaboration models are essential for unlocking the long-term return on AI investments.”

Brit Morse
brit.morse@fortune.com

Around the Table

A round-up of the most important HR headlines.

Some users of AI coaches are finding them to be better than the professional human ones because they’re able to open up more easily. Wall Street Journal

The AI frenzy is back once again as companies like Amazon and Meta are upgrading their spending budgets to prioritize the latest technology. New York Times

California labor groups are pushing for legislation that would require businesses to notify workers when they use AI in the workplace. Bloomberg

Watercooler

Everything you need to know from Fortune.

Keeping up with tech. Generative AI and AI agents are disrupting online shopping, and large e-commerce powerhouses like Walmart and Amazon may be impacted. —Jason Del Rey

Career paths. For some executives, the road to success is a rather straightforward one, but the CEO of David’s Bridal has a much rockier start. —Emma Burleigh

The impacts of RIFs. While job openings have broadly remained steady, opportunities in private-sector government contractors have plummeted, according to new data. —Sasha Rogelberg

This is the web version of CHRO Daily, a newsletter focusing on helping HR executives navigate the needs of the workplace. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.

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Business

Optimum Partners with Amdocs for AI-Powered Business Transformation

Published

1 hour ago

September 10, 2025

Stock Titan

Amdocs (NASDAQ:DOX) has secured a multi-year agreement with Optimum to enhance and extend their managed transformation initiative using AI solutions. The collaboration leverages Amdocs’ amAIz Suite, a telco-grade AI platform, to implement key solutions including an AI-powered Bill Presenter and GenAI Care Agent.

The partnership aims to modernize Optimum’s billing infrastructure and overcome legacy system challenges. The implementation focuses on delivering improved customer experiences, streamlining operations, and building a more resilient, future-ready architecture to support long-term business growth.

Positive

Extended and expanded multi-year managed services agreement with major telecom provider Optimum

Implementation of AI solutions to improve customer experience and reduce support calls

Strategic modernization of billing infrastructure to enhance operational efficiency

Insights

Amdocs extends partnership with Optimum, providing AI solutions to modernize operations and enhance customer experience.

This expanded multi-year agreement between Amdocs and Optimum represents a significant continuation and deepening of their existing partnership. Optimum is leveraging Amdocs’ amAIz Suite—a specialized AI platform for telecommunications—to address critical operational challenges while modernizing their customer experience infrastructure.

The collaboration focuses on two key AI implementations with measurable business impact: An AI-powered Bill Presenter aimed at reducing support calls through improved billing clarity, and a GenAI Care Agent to enhance customer service capabilities. Both solutions directly target pain points in the telecom customer experience journey where friction typically leads to higher operational costs.

For Amdocs, this deal reinforces their position in the telecom AI transformation space—a high-growth market as carriers seek to modernize legacy infrastructure. The partnership validates Amdocs’ strategy of developing industry-specific AI solutions rather than generic offerings, creating higher-value, defensible market positions.

The agreement’s strategic importance is highlighted by executive-level involvement, with both companies’ technology leaders (Luciano Ramos from Optimum and Anthony Goonetilleke from Amdocs) jointly presenting at an industry conference. This level of visibility indicates the partnership carries significant strategic weight beyond a typical vendor arrangement.

For investors, this represents the type of high-margin, recurring revenue business that underpins Amdocs’ stability while offering growth through expanded AI service adoption. While financial terms weren’t disclosed, telecommunications managed services agreements typically involve substantial multi-year commitments that provide revenue predictability.

09/10/2025 – 08:00 AM

Powered by Amdocs’ AI-native solutions, the agreement extends and expands Amdocs’ managed services engagement for Optimum’s broadband and video services products

JERSEY CITY, NJ / ACCESS Newswire / September 10, 2025 / Amdocs (NASDAQ:DOX), a leading provider of software and services to communications and media companies, today announced that Optimum, a leading provider of fiber internet, mobile, and TV services, has signed a multi‑year agreement to extend and deepen its managed transformation initiative using Amdocs’ AI offerings.

This collaboration enhances Optimum’s ongoing journey with Amdocs by delivering new customer and business outcomes enabled by amAIz Suite-Amdocs’ modular, telco‑grade AI platform that unifies data, delivers insights, and powers intelligent agents tailored for the communications industry. Under this agreement, the teams have started working on solutions that include:

AI-powered Bill Presenter, designed to offer more intuitive, interactive billing experiences that improve customer understanding and reduce support calls.
GenAI Care Agent, supporting customer care representatives with inquiries such as plan changes, promotions, balances, fees, and more.

Additionally, amAIz Suite will assist Optimum’s ongoing efforts to modernize its billing infrastructure, helping overcome legacy system challenges with a forward-looking approach aligned to the demands of the digital economy.

“At Optimum, we are undergoing work that is transforming our business from the inside out, including the modernization and evolution of our technology foundation through various AI tools and partner solutions that will deliver better agent and customer experiences,” said Luciano Ramos, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Optimum. “This collaboration with Amdocs is poised to help us consolidate and streamline critical systems like billing while building a more resilient, future-ready architecture to accelerate innovation and support long-term business growth.”

“Our collaboration with Optimum underscores the growing need for smart, scalable operations that go beyond traditional IT services,” said Anthony Goonetilleke, Group President of Technology and Head of Strategy at Amdocs. “With our AI-powered solutions, we’re empowering Optimum to simplify complexity, accelerate innovation, and unlock long-term business value.”

Anthony Goonetilleke and Luciano Ramos will be speaking during the “Amdocs & Optimum – Verticalizing AI for Telcos” fireside chat during the Ready, set, scale: Getting AI game-ready session at TM Forum, Innovate Americas in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, September 10^th at 11AM local time.

Supporting Resources

About Amdocs

Amdocs helps those who build the future to make it amazing. With our market-leading portfolio of software products and services, we unlock our customers’ innovative potential, empowering them to provide next-generation communication and media experiences for both the individual end user and enterprise customers. Our employees around the globe are here to accelerate service providers’ migration to the cloud, enable them to differentiate in the 5G era, and digitalize and automate their operations. Listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, Amdocs had revenue of $5.00 billion in fiscal 2024. For more information, visit www.amdocs.com

Amdocs’ Forward-Looking Statement

This press release includes information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about Amdocs’ growth and business results in future quarters and years. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be obtained or that any deviations will not be material. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, the effects of general macroeconomic conditions, prevailing level of macroeconomic, business and operational uncertainty, including as a result of geopolitical events or other regional events or pandemics, changes to trade policies including tariffs and trade restrictions, as well as the current inflationary environment, and the effects of these conditions on the Company’s customers’ businesses and levels of business activity, including the effect of the current economic uncertainty and industry pressure on the spending decisions of the Company’s customers. Amdocs’ ability to grow in the business markets that it serves, Amdocs’ ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses, adverse effects of market competition, rapid technological shifts that may render the Company’s products and services obsolete, security incidents, including breaches and cyberattacks to our systems and networks and those of our partners or customers, potential loss of a major customer, our ability to develop long-term relationships with our customers, our ability to successfully and effectively implement artificial intelligence and Generative AI in the Company’s offerings and operations, and risks associated with operating businesses in the international market. Amdocs may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future; however, Amdocs specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These and other risks are discussed at greater length in Amdocs’ filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024, filed on December 17, 2024, and our Form 6-K furnished for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 on February 18, 2025, for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 on May 19, 2025, and for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 on August 18, 2025.

Media Contacts

Michael Zema
Amdocs Public Relations
Mzema@amdocs.com

SOURCE: Amdocs Management Limited

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

FAQ

What is the new partnership between Amdocs and Optimum?

Amdocs and Optimum have signed a multi-year agreement to extend and enhance their managed transformation initiative using Amdocs’ AI offerings, particularly the amAIz Suite platform.

What AI solutions will Amdocs implement for Optimum?

Amdocs will implement two main AI solutions: an AI-powered Bill Presenter for more intuitive billing experiences and a GenAI Care Agent to support customer care representatives with various inquiries.

How will the Amdocs partnership benefit Optimum’s operations?

The partnership will help Optimum modernize its billing infrastructure, overcome legacy system challenges, improve customer experiences, and build a more resilient, future-ready architecture for long-term business growth.

When will Amdocs and Optimum present details about their AI collaboration?

They will present during the ‘Amdocs & Optimum – Verticalizing AI for Telcos’ fireside chat at TM Forum, Innovate Americas in Dallas, on September 10th at 11AM.

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