Agent Utilization

Agent utilization is a key workforce management metric that balances efficiency with agent wellbeing. Industry best practices target utilization rates of 75-85% — high enough to maintain productivity but low enough to allow for breaks, training, and after-call work that prevents burnout. Utilization below 65% indicates overstaffing or poor scheduling, while utilization consistently above 90% leads to agent fatigue, errors, and high turnover.

AI impacts agent utilization in two ways: it handles routine interactions that would otherwise consume agent time (improving overall operation efficiency), and it provides agent assist tools that reduce the time spent on each interaction (allowing agents to handle more complex cases in the same timeframe). The ideal AI-augmented workforce model maximizes human agent utilization on high-value, complex interactions while AI handles volume efficiently.