Brazil mandates daily access to human agents in customer service
The Associação Brasileira de Telesserviços projects that the decree will require agent teams in regulated sectors to grow by 20% to 25%.
What's happening
According to Consumidor Moderno, Decree No. 13,135/2026, published in the Official Gazette on October 13, 2026, took effect on November 2. The decree extends human-agent service beyond the phone to digital channels and requires it every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sundays and holidays included. The Associação Brasileira de Telesserviços projects that agent teams in regulated sectors will need to grow by 20% to 25%, which would mean 80,000 to 100,000 new job openings.
Whose desk it lands on
The head of the contact center. If you had to staff every channel with human agents from morning to evening, every day, would your shift and cost plans be ready?
Our view
The CX Brief's interpretation, not a claim made by the source.
Brazil's decree does not ban AI; it attaches a condition: customers must be able to talk to a human when they want to. According to the association's president, this is the first time a rule has given AI a defined role in greeting, routing, and resolution. Menus can be no more than five levels deep, and every level must offer the option to speak to a human and to cancel. That is why the success of automation will be measured alongside how easy it is to reach a human.
Source
Source:Associação Brasileira de Telesserviços
Reported by: Consumidor Moderno·October 30, 2026
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