--- title: "AI in UK contact centres: what the new ContactBabel report means for TelXL partners" description: 36-47% of UK contact centres can't say if their AI beats a human. Read what ContactBabel's new report means for channel partners. image: https://telxl.com/hubfs/Standard%20social%20image/standard%20social%20image%20for%20the%20website.png --- [![TelXL](https://telxl.com/hubfs/TelXL-logo-strapline_256x119.png)](https://telxl.com) [Home](https://telxl.com) Products [Contact Centre](https://telxl.com/contact-centre) [AI Virtual Receptionist](https://telxl.com/ai-virtual-receptionist) [Cxp Analytics](https://telxl.com/cxp-analytics) [Cxp Insights](https://telxl.com/cxp-insights) [Partners](https://telxl.com/partners) Company [About Us](https://telxl.com/about) [Careers](https://telxl.com/careers) [Blog & News](https://telxl.com/blog) [Become a partner](https://telxl.com/partners#signup) AI # AI in UK contact centres: what the new ContactBabel report means for TelXL partners Te **TelXL Team** 02 October 2026 · ![\ UK contact centres are spending more on AI every year, and most of them can't tell you whether it's working. That's the headline from ContactBabel's new report, [*AI in UK Contact Centres: The Reality*](https://www.contactbabel.com/ai-in-uk-contact-centres/), published in September 2026. ContactBabel surveyed 202 UK contact centre and CX professionals in Q3 2026 and 1,000 UK consumers. They asked what organisations have actually deployed, what it does without a human stepping in, and what customers think of the result. The answers are more useful to channel partners than most of the AI coverage you'll read this year. Below, we've pulled out the findings that matter most for partners, and where we think the opportunity sits for you and your customers. **Everyone thinks they're behind** Only 14% of UK contact centres think they're ahead of competitors on AI. 52% think they're behind, and among centres with fewer than 50 agents that rises to 64%. ContactBabel points out the obvious problem: those numbers can't all be true. Most organisations are comparing their own known weaknesses with someone else's marketing. That perceived gap is still driving money. 70% expect their AI budget to grow over the next two years and just 1% expect it to fall. AI already takes 13.4% of contact centre and CX technology spend, and ContactBabel models that rising to around 17%. Smaller operations feel it most. Centres under 200 agents put 15% of their tech budget into AI, against 11% for the largest. They're also the least likely to have in-house AI specialists, and the most likely to disagree with the direction their board has set (32% of small centres). That's a lot of pressure to act with very little support, which is exactly where a trusted partner earns their place. **Bots are falling short, and a third of users want a new one** A quarter of UK contact centres run an AI chatbot and 12% run a voicebot. Plans are far bigger: 37% intend to put in a voicebot within the next 12 months. The performance of what's already live is modest. Voicebots resolve a median of 18% of the interactions they handle without a human, and the bottom quarter manage 5% or less. Chatbots do a little better, with a median of 23%. The more telling number is replacement intent. A third of current voicebot users and 28% of chatbot users want to replace what they have. ContactBabel's view is that many of these deployments were bought on the strength of a demo rather than a pilot. For partners, that means a large slice of the installed base is open to a conversation right now. There's also a warning about language. 24% of contact centres say they use "agentic AI", yet only around 2% have a bot that can work out the steps for itself and complete a request across more than one system. Customers have heard the word so often it's stopped meaning much. Being specific about what a product does on its own is now a selling point in itself. **Most can't prove their AI is working** This is the finding we'd put in front of every prospect. Depending on the measure, 36% to 47% of organisations running AI can't say whether it performs better or worse than a human agent. Between 39% and 46% say it's "too early to say" how it has done against the original business case, even where it has been live for years. Where they have made the comparison, AI comes out faster but worse. 69% say it beats a human on handling time. Humans win on accuracy (38% to 28%) and first contact resolution (44% to 27%). On customer satisfaction, not one respondent said AI does better than a person. Targets tell the same story. Every organisation set a measurable goal for cost reduction. 13% set none at all for customer satisfaction. And things do get pulled. 31% of contact centres have stopped, paused or rolled back an AI deployment, and 67% of those cite accuracy or reliability as the reason. Despite that, only 21% see measuring ROI as a barrier. As the report puts it, an organisation that can't tell whether its AI works doesn't know it has a problem. The report also notes that 53% of interaction analytics users struggle to act on what their analytics finds. Having the data isn't the same as using it. **Customers know exactly what they want from AI** The consumer side of the research is more positive than you might expect. 62% of UK consumers name at least one situation where they would actively choose AI over a person. Those situations are specific. 43% would pick AI for a quick answer to a simple question, 27% to avoid waiting in a queue and 21% when getting in touch out of hours. Only 8% want AI when following up an existing case. What worries them is competence and access. 80% are concerned about being misunderstood or given the wrong answer, and 78% about struggling to reach a human. That second figure climbs to 89% among the over-65s. Data privacy, which gets far more press attention, sits lowest of the six concerns tested at 60%. The current experience isn't great either. 81% say queue times are often too long. 61% say they're often only calling because they couldn't sort the issue online, and 55% often have to call more than once. So the brief from customers is clear. Use AI for the simple and the urgent, keep people for the complex and emotional, and never make it hard to reach one. Get that right and most customers are on board. **Why this is a partner opportunity** Contact centre AI isn't being bought the way most people assume. 65% of UK contact centres get most of their AI from somewhere other than their contact centre platform provider. Over the next two to three years, 22% expect to move further towards specialist AI vendors and 28% want to build more in-house. ContactBabel is sceptical about that last group, since 27% name a lack of internal AI skills as a barrier. The gap between wanting to build and being able to is where partners come in. The buying decision is also split. IT holds the AI budget in 41% of organisations, yet contact centre operations is the function held accountable when AI goes wrong in 47%. The people signing the order aren't always the people who decide whether it gets renewed. That shapes how you sell. IT and procurement rank data security and sovereignty (73%), ease of integration (68%) and total cost (56%) as their top criteria. Operations leaders need proof that the thing is helping customers and agents. A good partner pitch covers both. The report's own advice to buyers helps here too. It recommends a paid pilot on real traffic as part of selection, because accuracy, the main reason deployments fail, can't be checked from a brochure. **Where TelXL fits** TelXL is 100% channel. We built our AI suite to sell through partners, and it lines up closely with the problems this report describes. **[Cxp Insights](https://telxl.com/cxp-insights): start with the facts.** Most contact centres are buying AI to close a gap they've never measured, and around 40% can't judge AI against their own business case. Cxp Insights gives your customer a clear picture of where they stand before they spend, including where automation will help and where it won't. With 61% of consumers calling only because a digital channel failed them, there's usually plenty to find. For partners, it's a low-risk way to open the conversation. **[Cxp Analytics:](https://telxl.com/cxp-analytics) prove it's working.** The contact centre carries the blame when AI goes wrong, but often has no evidence either way. Cxp Analytics gives operations leaders the performance data they're missing, with reporting built for agents, team leaders and the board. It helps with the bigger issue too: when 53% of analytics users struggle to act on what they find, analytics has to be in displayed in a way that people can act on. **[Alix](https://telxl.com/ai-virtual-receptionist): AI voice for the jobs customers actually want automated.** The research shows customers are happy to use AI for simple questions, avoiding queues and out-of-hours contact. That's where Alix is aimed. And because 78% of consumers worry about getting stuck with a bot, a smooth handover to a person is central to how we position it. With a third of voicebot users wanting to move on from their current system, there's a real upgrade opportunity for partners. We'll also be straight about what our products do. In a market where the word "agentic" has stopped meaning much, we think honesty about capability wins more renewals than big claims. **What happens next** 93% of UK contact centres expect a hybrid future, with AI taking routine contacts and people handling the complex ones. Budgets will keep growing. The organisations that do well will be the ones that measure properly, automate what customers are happy to automate, and keep the route to a human easy to find. Your customers will need help getting there, and we'd like to help you help them. If you'd like to talk through the report, see how Cxp Insights, Cxp Analytics and Alix fit your customer base, or join PartnerXL, get in touch with the TelXL partner team below.     **Sources:** All figures from ContactBabel, *AI in UK Contact Centres: The Reality*, published September 2026. Business survey of 202 UK contact centre and CX professionals (Q3 2026); consumer survey of 1,000 UK consumers. Free ContactBabel reports are available at [contactbabel.com](https://www.contactbabel.com). 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