Support automation hit its demand ceiling the same days two vendors doubled down on it.

Oracle cut Customer Support Services staff on September 14 to fund a capex year going from $48 billion net in FY2026 to about $70 billion projected for FY2027, on top of 21,000 employees cut earlier in 2026. CX Today Hostinger retired Kodee, which resolved 91% of about 1.5 million monthly conversations, and replaced it with an agent that edits sites directly. Pulling the other way: of 3,566 customers Gartner surveyed in February and March, 87% considered human access essential, and by July 2026 customers were about three times more likely to use a third-party generative AI service than a company's own chatbot for service questions. FINCHANNEL The deflection number and the trust number are moving in opposite directions, and Hostinger inventing an "AI CX Engineer" role is the only structural answer anyone offered.