A new bill, the “Keep Call Centers in America Act of 2025,” was proposed in May 2025 in the US with huge contact centre implications.

What does the bill say?

Can roughly divide the significant impact of the bill into two categories:

1. ‘Reshoring protection’

• 120-day notice required before offshoring contact center roles.
• Offshoring companies get placed on a public list for 5 years.
• Penalty: $10,000/day for non-compliance.
• Exclusion from federal contracts, loans, and grants.
• All federal contact center work must be performed in the U.S.

2. Disclosure and consumer control over their own experience

• Agents must disclose if they’re AI or automated.
• Agents must disclose their physical location.
• Consumers have the right to escalate to a U.S.-based human agent, though not necessarily by phone.

Do you know if this bill will pass?

As to whether this bill will pass, I assume not, as it seems overly strict. However, despite not an American political analyst, I see how the protectionist policies of the current government might lead to a policy like this also gaining traction. For a while, the services industry has been able to avoid the impact of tariffs, but many analysts like myself have wondered what policies might come into target services directly. This is the sort of bill that can be used to target a service that is being offshored aggressively.

It is also worth noting that in all the research Cavell has done, the preference for an agent a) in your region, b) that is not an AI pretending to be real, and c) allows you to connect to a human being when you decide you need to, is tremendous. So this bill features a lot of things that consumers in America are likely to be drastically in favour of at least on paper. If this has negative effects on the actual experience – as I suspect it might – then they might quickly realise they don’t understand what is actually going on in their customer service.

Implications of Reshoring

Quick points:

• $10,000/day may be cheaper than reshoring for some enterprises.
• But for consumer-facing brands, being publicly listed as “offshored” could damage trust, especially after poor service experiences.
• Expect Voice AI and AI Receptionists to benefit as companies look to replace offshore agents without scaling U.S. headcount.
• That said, the escalation clause means agent demand may remain higher than forecasted, especially as queue-time sensitivity rises.

Expanding further:

Much of whether this impacts companies will be determined by the size and value of their contact centres. I can imagine that if you are in a position where you don’t need federal contracts or money and you save more than $10,000 a day by having a contact center overseas, you might just pay that fine and move on. However, there is a question for consumer-focused brands of the reputation impact of being on this sort of list. My initial thought is that consumers look for problems after a bad experience. If you have poor customer service and are on this list, I expect more backlash. However, if you have a good CX reputation, your presence on this list likely doesn’t become an issue.

However, quite a few companies will be directly impacted by this. These companies will either reshore agents or push to replace those agents with successful automation. If this bill goes through, I expect it to buoy Voice AI and AI Receptionist sales. That being said, the requirement for escalation will likely keep agent numbers higher than expected. Especially as ‘time in queue’ sensitivity has steadily increased over the last few years. It won’t be enough to escalate with huge wait times. You must ensure that the first point of automated contact is so helpful that escalation isn’t the default choice for as many people as possible.

It is also worth noting that on-shoring agents at scale is an expensive proposition. Many of the services that have done this have priced their services accordingly. So, there are potential implications for the cost of certain goods and services if those companies are forced to do CX from the US.

Implications of Disclosure

The disclosure provisions are also interesting because they go beyond the EU steps in some significant ways. The EU requires disclosure if the average consumer does not know they are speaking to an AI, but this new bill requires disclosure not only of automation but also of location.

This has enormous potential impacts on the CX market’s travel direction. Previously, we moved towards a situation where AI and human interactions were blended without disclosure. If the system worked well, the consumer would never know who they were speaking to. If they got escalated, the agent’s accent would just switch to match the accent the consumer would best understand. It’s not deception; it’s more about enabling easier communication on both sides. And again, much like the list, if you delivered exemplary customer service using those methods, you wouldn’t receive much backlash. Consumers care first about whether they get good customer service and then worry about how it was done.

However (and we are still early days on research on this front), my initial feelings are that disclosure does actually cause direct pushback against these methods. The results were quite negative when we surveyed consumer attitudes about being served by a foreign contact centre worker or automation. By disclosing, you create that moment of friction, like when you ask a question on a survey. While that consumer might have been happy receiving good customer service and not asking the question, you create that issue by saying it.

I think if companies are forced to disclose, we will find more consumers choosing to escalate as a default option. Especially if it’s phrased poorly: ‘I am an automated system. Are you happy to continue, or would you like to speak to an agent? The wait time is 15 minutes.’ It could work, but if you just say the first part, a lot of people might give a default ‘Yes’.

How will the escalation work?

The language around escalation is quite vague, so this escalation does not have to be on voice. The only requirement is that it is a live agent, physically present in the US. This could be a live-text-based chat, or over WhatsApp, which could remove the burden. It’s also possible that there could be an interpretation that sees ‘live agent monitored chat’ as fulfilling the requirement. So as long as there is a live agent that can come in and monitor or input into the chat feed, the requirements might be satisfied.

This is one of the parts of the bill I am most excited about, and I think the EU could even adopt it. The most frustrating experience I have as a consumer is knowing I need to speak to an agent and being unable to do so easily. In addition, it forces companies to drastically improve their frontline contact experience and problem-solving and actively reduce escalation by being better rather than just by being hard to reach.

Global implications

The global implications of this bill are clear to me. Many countries are wondering how they can retain service jobs and are dealing with the potential automation and off-shoring of millions of workers in their market. If this bill passes and does not cause huge unforeseen issues, then this bill could become a template for other countries facing:

• AI displacement fears
• Public anger over “inaccessible” customer service
• Political pressure to protect service jobs

At the very least, once the ‘right to escalate’ and ‘right to disclosure’ clauses have been tested, other countries might follow suit.

Lets wrap up, what are your thoughts on this bill: Does it do too much? Does it not do enough? Does it see the problems but tackle them the wrong way? How would you write it differently?

Final hot takes

Is this bill heavy-handed? Probably.

Is it directionally aligned with what consumers say they want? Absolutely.

Does it ignore the operational complexity and cost realities of global CX? 100%.

But here’s the bottom line: Bad CX is now a political issue. And if your contact center strategy relies on opacity, automation, and offshoring—you need a plan B.

Get in touch

Oh, and as always, if you want to discuss Cavell’s CX research, our latest CCaaS market forecasts, or any custom research/survey or whitepaper work, just get in touch at finbarr.begley@cavell.com

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