AI on My Shoulder: Supporting Emotional Labor in Front-Office Roles with an LLM-based Empathetic Coworker

Client-Service Representatives (CSRs) are vital to organizations. Frequent interactions with disgruntled clients, however, disrupt their mental well-being. To help CSRs regulate their emotions while interacting with uncivil clients, we designed Care-Pilot, an LLM-powered assistant, and evaluated its efficacy, perception, and use. Our comparative analyses between 665 human and Care-Pilot-generated support messages highlight Care-Pilot's ability to adapt to and demonstrate empathy in various incivility incidents. Additionally, 143 CSRs assessed Care-Pilot's empathy as more sincere and actionable than human messages. Finally, we interviewed 20 CSRs who interacted with Care-Pilot in a simulation exercise. They reported that Care-Pilot helped them avoid negative thinking, recenter thoughts, and humanize clients; showing potential for bridging gaps in coworker support. Yet, they also noted deployment challenges and emphasized the indispensability of shared experiences. We discuss future designs and societal implications of AI-mediated emotional labor, underscoring empathy as a critical function for AI assistants for worker mental health.

@article{swain2025_2411.02408,
  title={ AI on My Shoulder: Supporting Emotional Labor in Front-Office Roles with an LLM-based Empathetic Coworker },
  author={ Vedant Das Swain and Qiuyue "Joy" Zhong and Jash Rajesh Parekh and Yechan Jeon and Roy Zimmermann and Mary Czerwinski and Jina Suh and Varun Mishra and Koustuv Saha and Javier Hernandez },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.02408},
  year={ 2025 }
}