Where the Future of Work is Headed – and What It Means for Offshoring and Global Service Delivery

In her latest edition of “Musings of a Wandering Mind,” strategist and founder of Bodacious, Zoe Scaman, shares insights from recent conversations inside some of Silicon Valley’s most influential boardrooms, including OpenAI, Netflix, Nvidia, Apple, and Perplexity.

Her reflections outline what’s next for AI and digital ecosystems: a systemic transformation of how we work, connect, and operate that will affect every part of the global business services chain.

Here are key signals and takeaways that resonated with us as a tech-enabled business building for the future.

1. Super-Apps Are Becoming the New Operating Systems of Work

Zoe reports that a growing number of Gen Zs already rely on tools like ChatGPT as their default assistant, for search, problem-solving, even purchasing decisions.

This isn’t accidental. OpenAI and other players are actively designing AI to replace the multi-app digital experience with one central, conversational interface.

Key Shifts:

Meta, Google, and Perplexity are each embedding AI across communication and commerce platforms
Internal vision statements from OpenAI point to a future where ChatGPT becomes the default interface for the internet.
AI assistants will mediate how people search, shop, and get work done. Instead of navigating systems, users will increasingly make requests, and AI will route and execute on their behalf.

As AI becomes the new interface for tasks and decisions, the business services layer, especially functions traditionally offshored, must evolve to integrate with or support AI-powered workflows. For BPOs, this means becoming fluent in the new tools and capable of supporting clients through both human expertise and AI augmentation.

2. AI Will Become the Identity Layer of the Internet

We are moving toward persistent AI profiles that carry preferences, history, and context across platforms. This may soon be the primary way customers are recognised and served online.

Key Ideas:

“Log in with ChatGPT” or “shop with your Gemini profile” may become the norm.
First-party data will become harder to access as customer context will live within AI systems, not individual platforms
AI will remember preferences and personalise experiences across touchpoints

As client-side systems lose direct access to behavioural data, service providers, especially those managing CRM, analytics, or loyalty programs, will need to work with, rather than around, these new AI-led identity layers. Delivering value may require interpreting signals from within AI ecosystems, rather than owning them outright.

3. AI Optimisation Will Replace Traditional Discovery

A critical point to consider is that when AI becomes the first point of contact for users, traditional SEO and navigation collapse. Instead of browsing, people will prompt.

For example:

“Generate a tax-ready profit and loss report for Q2 using last year’s format”
“Find anomalies in our expense claims from March to May and flag outliers”

AI will only deliver what it can interpret through structured, well-organized information. This marks a shift from searching to asking, and only those services and tools designed for AI interpretation will be surfaced.

For offshoring and business service teams, this shift calls for a new kind of readiness: Being able to describe processes, services, and data in machine-readable ways. Whether it’s tagging finance workflows, making internal knowledge bases AI-searchable, or structuring SOPs so agents can execute them automatically, teams must be equipped to support AI-led task initiation and handover.

4. Closed AI Models Are Useful, but Ownership Matters

Another consistent theme was that tech giants using closed models (like OpenAI or Google) for testing are planning to build proprietary models in-house, because:

Proprietary models allow businesses to control how their data, decisions, and differentiation are handled
Relying entirely on third-party models risks strategic lock-in

Clients may increasingly ask outsourcing partners to manage or help build internal AI tools. Providers that can support secure, business-specific AI model development, not just use off-the-shelf tools, will become more valuable.

5. AI Is Moving Toward Modular, Specialised Models

The future isn’t one large AI engine but networks of smaller, focused models, each an “expert” in a particular area. This is already emerging through the “Mixture of Experts” architecture as put forth by Nvidia and OpenAI.

Modular models reduce cost and increase speed
Domain-specific AI outperforms general models in tasks like finance, IT, and operations

This validates the power of specialisation. Service teams with narrow domain expertise, augmented by domain-tuned AI, will outperform broad, generalised delivery models.

6. Relevance Over Novelty

Restraint, not speed, is what builds trust and emotional resonance. Apple’s approach stood out: don’t ship unless it truly improves the user experience.

The questions that BPO providers should ask before implementing AI enhancements:

Does this AI feature solve a meaningful problem for the client?
Are we enhancing team performance, or just adding complexity?
Will our delivery model still feel personal, intuitive, and aligned with human needs?

7. Presence Is the New UX

The final trend highlighted is ambient AI. Between Apple’s spatial computing push and proactive assistants from OpenAI and Google, we are moving toward screenless, intuitive interaction.

What this means for businesses:

Interfaces will be voice-based, gesture-driven, and environmental
Businesses must embed themselves into user intent, not just interfaces.

Support roles may evolve from ticket-based systems to ambient, AI-triggered interventions. Offshore teams that support IT, admin, or customer service functions will need to adapt to this more fluid, proactive way of working.

Final Thoughts

These shifts are real, material, and moving faster than many organisations expect.

For businesses that rely on outsourcing and offshoring, this is a pivotal moment. The delivery model must advance – from task execution to system integration, from labour efficiency to AI fluency.

At H Connect International, we are actively exploring how these shifts can shape smarter, more adaptive service models for our clients.

We will continue to build with this future in mind.