Oversight Cost Curve

Oversight Cost Curve is the framework that maps how much human review an AI call center deployment actually requires at each level of automation. Vendors quote autonomous resolution rates, but the agency's real cost sits in the supervision layer: reviewing transcripts, correcting misrouted intents, and handling warm transfers that arrive without context. A platform resolving 40-65% of calls autonomously still leaves the remainder for humans, and each transferred call costs more to close than one handled end to end because the agent rebuilds context from scratch. The curve bends upward when vertical training data is thin, because generic models misclassify industry-specific intent and push more calls into escalation. Agencies that price retainers on seat count rather than supervision hours absorb that variance themselves. The practical move is to instrument escalation rate and average handle time on transferred calls before quoting a managed service, then reprice when either drifts.