our weekly newsletter <\/a>for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.<\/p>\nBritish Gas’s Energy team handles customer enquiries about gas and electricity accounts, including bills, complaints and payment difficulties.<\/p>\n
The Services team deals with breakdowns and repairs covered by British Gas HomeCare policies, including boilers, radiators, electrical appliances, drains and EV chargers.<\/p>\n
Staff were told the changes were needed to meet the “evolving needs of customers” and that British Gas would continue investing in digital tools.<\/p>\n
The company said around nine in 10 customer interactions now take place through its website, chatbot, app or WhatsApp channels, with many customers preferring to resolve issues themselves rather than speak to a call centre adviser.<\/p>\n
The GMB union has criticised the move, disputing suggestions that demand for call centre services has fallen. The union says its members report being under pressure and struggling to cope with workloads.<\/p>\n
Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB National Secretary, said: “It’s an absolute disgrace British Gas is slashing hundreds of human jobs and giving them to chatbots. <\/p>\n
“These staff are massively overworked and underpaid, yet do their level best to keep customers happy. Now, instead of being rewarded, they’re being replaced by artificial intelligence.”<\/p>\n
Documents seen by ITV News show the company’s Customer Service Transformation strategy aims to reduce avoidable contact with call centres, encourage greater use of self-service and digital channels, and reserve contact centre support for customers who “fall out of the digital journey.”<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used by companies to handle customer service enquiries through websites, apps, chatbots and messaging services such as WhatsApp.<\/p>\n
Staff were told the changes were needed to meet customers’ “evolving” demands. Credit: PA<\/p>\n
Modern AI systems are capable of dealing with tasks such as explaining bills, taking meter readings, arranging appointments, processing payments and troubleshooting problems, often without human intervention.<\/p>\n
It is not clear to what extent British Gas is currently using artificial intelligence in its customer service operations.<\/p>\n
In a statement, a spokesperson for the company said: “The suggestion these roles are being replaced by AI or new chatbot technology is simply wrong.<\/p>\n
“Customer behaviour is changing, with inbound contact down by around 31% since 2023.<\/p>\n
“While demand for call centre support has reduced, we recognise that many customers still need to speak to us – particularly those requiring additional help – and this will always remain a priority.<\/p>\n
“We have been transforming our business for a number of years to ensure we have the right roles in place for the future. As part of this, and in response to the way customers are choosing to engage with us, we are consulting on changes across our customer operations team that could affect around 500 roles.<\/p>\n
“We are working constructively with our trade unions to support colleagues through this and we’re offering the option of voluntary redundancy where possible.”<\/p>\n
Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know… <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Play Brightcove video British Gas told staff at an online meeting that the redundancies were part of its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-635309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/BRITISH_GAS_HERO.jpg\"\/)
Play Brightcove video<\/p>\n