The weirdest thing happened to me recently. I contacted a customer service department and enjoyed it. I sent an email, heard back promptly, and got a refund. What was most notable about the positive problem-solving experience was the fact that I couldn\u2019t tell if there was a human other than me involved.<\/p>\n
It dawned on me, however briefly, that the prophecies were finally coming true. AI was finally making it easier for me to complain to companies and get results. At least that\u2019s what I wanted to believe.<\/p>\n
Customer service is supposed to be one of those things that AI can just do. Indeed, that one good experience was powered by an AI-first company called Intercom. They have an AI agent called Fin<\/a> that handles most of its clients\u2019 queries. Why not all of them?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m confident that a lot of current customer support that happens over a phone or computer, those people will lose their jobs, and that\u2019ll be better done by an AI,\u201d OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Tucker Carlson<\/a>, of all people, in September.<\/p>\n Altman is hardly the only Silicon Valley executive pushing to automate customer service. Last year, Salesforce cut 4,000 customer service jobs<\/a> in favor of AI tools, and Verizon launched a chatbot<\/a> powered by Google Gemini as its front door for customer service. Then there\u2019s Klarna, whose CEO bragged about replacing humans<\/a> with AI before backtracking<\/a> last May and launching a recruiting drive to hire more human customer service agents.<\/p>\n There\u2019s the rub. It turns out that AI, and especially generative AI, is really good at doing some things\u2026until it isn\u2019t. That\u2019s why you still have to fact-check<\/a> everything ChatGPT tells you and why, even though they\u2019re good at diagnosing certain medical conditions, chatbots can\u2019t replace human doctors<\/a>. When it comes to customer service, AI can be good at simple tasks, like issuing refunds, but terrible at handling more complicated cases, especially when customers are upset and could benefit from some human empathy. To quote Anchorman, \u201cSixty percent of the time, it works every time.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, human customer service agents are losing their jobs to AI in large numbers, and have been for the last few years, both in the United States<\/a> and abroad. Whether to cut costs or look cool, a lot of companies rolled out AI-powered chatbots as the first point of contact for customers, only to realize that customers actually hate this concept. Now, these organizations are pulling back from those plans, according to Brad Fager<\/a>, chief of research for customer service and support leaders at Gartner.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that you could replace your workforce is really just not viable, and it\u2019s not even preferable,\u201d Fager told me, noting that executives might think replacing human agents with AI is a good way to cut costs. \u201cThe reality is it\u2019s just not working.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s also evidence that customers just don\u2019t like interacting with AI. One 2024 Gartner survey found that 61 percent of customers would prefer<\/a> companies didn\u2019t use AI at all for customer service, and 53 percent of them would consider switching to a competitor if they did. As Fager explained to me, Gartner has broadly taken the stance that AI and automation will transform<\/a> the future of customer service, but that humans will play a big role in that transformation. And to many customers\u2019 delight, a lot of the AI integration will happen on the back end, helping human agents do their jobs better rather than leading interactions. The customers themselves may never know that AI was involved.<\/p>\n This approach reminded me of a study I read a couple of years ago<\/a> from researchers at MIT and Stanford who looked into how generative AI improved productivity in call center workers. It did, mostly for the less experienced agents. With access to an AI tool that offered real-time suggestions on how to handle calls, the workers were able to resolve 14 percent more cases per hour. The tool had been trained on data from more experienced agents and could even help novice workers be more empathetic to customers.<\/p>\n Contrast this with what you\u2019ve probably experienced with chatbots: the AI version of a phone tree. This is where you ask a customer service bot for help and are met with a menu of options prompting you to narrow down your request in order to get you to the correct, probably AI-powered agent. It\u2019s a slightly updated version of the infuriating phone tree that asks you to say or press one for billing, two for technical support, and so forth.<\/p>\n