{"slug": "openai-presence-raises-new-questions-about-enterprise-automation-and-jobs", "title": "OpenAI Presence raises new questions about enterprise automation and jobs", "summary": "OpenAI launched Presence, an enterprise service for deploying voice and chat agents that can automate customer and employee support tasks, claiming the system resolves 75% of inbound issues without human assistance in its own internal use. The service, which includes simulation and evaluation tools, is being tested by BBVA, SoftBank, and IAG, but analysts caution that most enterprises should expect lower initial automation rates due to legacy systems and compliance demands, with the first workforce impact likely being slower hiring rather than immediate layoffs.", "body_md": "OpenAI has launched Presence, an enterprise service for deploying voice and chat agents that can resolve customer and employee requests, potentially automating some work now handled by frontline support teams.\n\nThe agents can answer questions and operate IT systems, and enterprises can decide what actions the agents may take and when they should seek human approval for actions or transfer a case to a human.\n\nOpenAI is already using Presence internally for its English-language phone support channel, where it verifies callers and uses account information to complete approved actions. The company said the system resolves 75% of inbound issues without human assistance.\n\nAnother OpenAI service, Codex, can be used to monitor agents and suggest updates or improvements to processes. In OpenAI’s own tests, suggestions from Codex helped reduce handoffs to humans by 15 percentage points over 10 days, it said. Presence also includes simulation and evaluation tools that allow companies to test an agent before deployment. The tests assess whether it reaches the correct outcome, follows company policy, and hands a case to an employee when required.\n\nOpenAI intends each Presence deployment to deal with one kind of task, for example billing issues, insurance claims, or employee IT service requests, with agents getting only the knowledge and system access required for that task.\n\nPresence is not a self-service product: Enterprises will have to sign up for the limited availability program, with integration performed by OpenAI or selected [global systems integrators](https://www.computerworld.com/article/4136024/openai-partners-with-consulting-giants-to-deploy-enterprise-ai-agents.html).\n\nCompanies exploring or testing Presence include Spanish bank BBVA, which is evaluating the service for everyday banking support in Mexico, and Japanese technology group SoftBank, which is using it in trials involving Japanese-language customer interactions. Australian insurer IAG is assessing whether the technology can help it respond to surges in customer demand during severe weather events.\n\nOpenAI’s announcement did not address the potential effect of Presence on employment. But its claimed automation rate raises questions about how the technology could affect staffing in customer service and other support functions.\n\n[Pareekh Jain](https://pareekh.com/), CEO of Pareekh Consulting, said CIOs should regard the 75% figure as evidence that the technology can work, rather than as a benchmark that every enterprise can expect to reach.\n\nJain said OpenAI’s deployment benefits from being built around the company’s own products and data. Large enterprises may achieve lower automation rates because they must contend with fragmented legacy systems, uneven knowledge bases and more complex compliance demands.\n\n“Most organizations should expect lower initial automation levels that improve over time as the AI agent is refined,” Jain said.\n\nThe first workforce effect is more likely to be [slower hiring than immediate layoffs](https://www.cio.com/article/4015750/cios-see-ai-prompting-new-it-hiring-even-as-boards-push-for-job-cuts.html), according to [Tulika Sheel](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tulikasheel/), senior vice president at Kadence International.\n\n“The roles most exposed are likely to be repetitive, high-volume functions such as frontline customer support and routine back-office processing,” Sheel said. “However, I would expect the first impact to be on hiring and team growth rather than immediate large-scale job cuts. Over time, enterprises may redesign roles around AI-assisted workflows, with humans focusing more on complex cases, escalation, and relationship management.”\n\nJain said Tier-1 support agents handling predictable queries would face the most exposure. Broader reductions would become more likely only after companies reorganize their operations around the technology.\n\nHowever, [Lian Jye Su](https://omdia.tech.informa.com/authors/lian-jye-su), chief analyst at Omdia, said Presence is unlikely to increase the threat of job displacement because companies have used similar customer-support automation from vendors such as Genesys, NiCE, Five9 and AWS for years.\n\nEnterprises are more likely to use Presence alongside employees, with AI handling routine requests while people remain responsible for work requiring judgment and empathy, Su said.\n\nAnalysts said CIOs should examine whether Presence can maintain resolution quality as usage grows, since fewer human handoffs could leave employees dealing with a more difficult mix of cases.\n\n“The key question is not simply how many tasks AI can handle, but whether it can handle them reliably at scale,” Sheel said.\n\nThe financial case will depend partly on the cost of connecting Presence to existing systems and maintaining the controls needed to govern its use, according to Jain. “Often the biggest cost of enterprise AI is not tokens but [integration and governance](https://www.computerworld.com/article/4128310/openai-responds-to-claude-cowork-with-its-own-platform-to-help-build-deploy-and-manage-ai-agents.html),” Jain added.\n\nCompanies will need to determine what systems and data the agents can access, monitor their performance, and audit the actions they take. Those investments could offset early savings.\n\nSu said the complexity of enterprise IT will make it difficult for OpenAI to automate entire workflows on its own. Enterprises will still need to work with other technology providers and human employees, while CIOs will favor systems that can be audited and integrated with existing infrastructure.\n\nJain said the economics could improve if companies use the same integrations and governance controls across additional workflows.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-presence-raises-new-questions-about-enterprise-automation-and-jobs", "canonical_source": "https://www.cio.com/article/4200684/openai-presence-raises-new-questions-about-enterprise-automation-and-jobs.html", "published_at": "2026-07-23 13:15:07+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-23 13:38:49.452062+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-agents", "ai-products", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["OpenAI", "Presence", "Codex", "BBVA", "SoftBank", "IAG", "Pareekh Jain", "Tulika Sheel"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-presence-raises-new-questions-about-enterprise-automation-and-jobs", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-presence-raises-new-questions-about-enterprise-automation-and-jobs.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-presence-raises-new-questions-about-enterprise-automation-and-jobs.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-presence-raises-new-questions-about-enterprise-automation-and-jobs.jsonld"}}