By Sarah Nicastro, Founder and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service
The struggles of the talent landscape in field service are well known and fairly universally felt. In an article Stephen Goulbourne, Vice President, Global Program Director of Global Service at Mettler-Toledo, recently shared on LinkedIn, he relayed that 70% of organizations report critical skills gaps and the current global shortage of 2.6 million technicians is expected to worsen through 2025.
As businesses grapple with this reality, most are getting creative about how to attract, hire, and retain the next generation of field technicians, many completely overhauling their approach like leaders from ACCO and Multivac have recently shared with us. But to what extent should leaders also consider the role that AI agents could play within the workforce?
Agentic AI is a Leading Area of Potential
In Gartner’s recently published 2025 Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence, AI agents and AI-ready data are the two fastest advancing technologies. Business Wire’s coverage explains that AI agents are autonomous or semiautonomous software entities that use AI techniques to perceive, make decisions, take actions and achieve goals in their digital or physical environments. Using AI practices and techniques such as LLMs, organizations are creating and deploying AI agents to achieve complex tasks.
It also includes some commentary from Gartner that describes a pivot from GenAI to applications such as agents: “With AI investment remaining strong this year, a sharper emphasis is being placed on using AI for operational scalability and real-time intelligence,” quotes Haritha Khandabattu, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner. “This has led to a gradual pivot from generative AI (GenAI) as a central focus, toward the foundational enablers that support sustainable AI delivery, such as AI-ready data and AI agents.”
Khandabattu goes on to explain that it can be quite challenging to determine where within the business AI agents can be valuable: “To reap the benefits of AI agents, organizations need to determine the most relevant business contexts and use cases, which is challenging given no AI agent is the same and every situation is different,” said Khandabattu. “Although AI agents will continue to become more powerful, they can’t be used in every case, so use will largely depend on the requirements of the situation at hand.”
Does the Potential of Agentic AI Apply to Field Service?
So regardless of their place in Gartner’s hype cycle, the question becomes to what extent AI agents can provide lift for field service organizations. The recent acquisition by IFS, known for its service and asset management solutions, of Silicon Valley-headquartered agentic AI specialist theLoops, is a strong indication that the potential is big.
In Forbes coverage of the news, Aly Pinder, Jr., Research Vice President for Aftermarket Service Strategies at IDC shared his opinion: “AI is disrupting our world, but nowhere is the potential impact more pronounced than in the Industrial setting. IFS’s acquisition of theLoops is addressing a huge opportunity for asset-intensive and service-obsessed industries, where agentic decision making will enable organizations to rethink their digital workforce, so they can improve the way they serve their own customers. IFS is well-positioned to lead this shift in each of the industries it serves - bringing intelligent automation that’s not just smart, but situationally aware and operationally impactful.”
To begin envisioning where AI agents could play a role in offloading decision-making or tasks from already overburdened frontline workers, it’s interesting to take a look through CIO.com’s Agentic AI: 9 Promising Use Cases for Business. Reading through this list with field service in mind, the areas that stand out to me are:
- Customer support automation. The article states, “Organizations have long used simple chatbots and voice bots to handle simple customer service requests, but AI agents will allow customer service automation to evolve into a more robust service that doesn’t just answer a few frequently asked questions. Instead of a highly curated bot that answers a limited number of questions, AI agents will be able to understand and provide contextual answers for a wide range of customer needs.” In field service, you can imagine the value of agents that can take appropriate action not only in handling some of the simpler customer issues, but to then route to a remote service team or schedule on-site work that’s necessary.
- Automating enterprise workflows. The article states, “With vendors embracing AI agents, enterprise workflows will be a sweet spot for the technology, experts say, enabling businesses to streamline processes by automating routine tasks. Organizations deploying IT tools from a large vendor across the business should have an advantage over companies using a variety of solutions that may need to be linked by APIs. It will be important for enterprises to pool all their data and avoid information silos.” Anyone who has ever spent time with a field technician can imagine all of the ways that automation could ease their burden!
- Generating reports. The article states, “Writing text and creating images were two of the first popular use cases for gen AI. Now, AI agents can turbocharge the content creation process. AI plus human expertise is a tremendous boost in quality and AI agents aren’t just about optimization use cases. The real value is this expansion of the market, and expansion of revenue opportunities.” We talk all the time about how to improve productivity – having assistance in generating reports and handling time-consuming paperwork is a value that would thrill technicians while allowing them more time to focus on their actual work.
Field Service Organizations Must Continue to Prioritize Human Skills
While I think it is safe to say AI agents will play some role in transforming the talent landscape in service, don’t take your attention away from those creative measures to land the next generation of frontline workers. These agents should be viewed as a way to make the lives of field technicians easier; a digital workforce that can share the burden of the service organization – never a replacement for human skills.
“Service is a people business,” is a quote I hear time and time again – and believe deeply. In his recent article about what’s next for field service in the world of AI, Stephen outlines three of the major reasons humans remain essential in field service:
- Complex, Unstructured Environments. Electrical/mechanical repair often involves irregular or unpredictable physical environments, requiring human adaptability, dexterity, and safety judgment. Tasks like diagnosing a faulty circuit under poor lighting in a humid environment, or welding in confined spaces, are far beyond current autonomous robots.
- Tacit Knowledge & Physical Experience. Technicians rely on “feel,” sound, and other sensory inputs that are difficult to codify or automate. For example, subtle vibration indicating misalignment in a gearbox or electrical arcing you can smell; AI can’t yet replicate this sensory intuition.
- Trust, Accountability & Compliance. Regulated industries, for example medical devices, pharmaceutical and food manufacturing, require signed off human intervention for safety and compliance. Customers and regulators still expect a human to make final judgments and approve fixes.
These are three great examples of where human skills are demanded, but I believe there are many more specific as well as nuanced reasons why the people we hire, enable, and empower will continue to be crucial to any service business’ strategy.
Stephen summarizes this so well in his article, saying, “The future is human-led, AI-enabled. AI tools augment human intelligence and labor, not replace it. This synergy is key to solving the skilled labor gap, scaling training, and achieving better outcomes at lower cost.”
As you consider how best to create the right synergy of human skill and AI within your workforce, be sure to keep in mind the anxiety this topic often causes among workers. Leaders of service organizations who deeply understand the realities of the skills gap often fail to recognize that the incorporation of AI can cause fear on a number of levels, so transparency, reassurance, and consistent communication are essential.