How do you feel about companies using AI to chat to you?

[rereturner]

Hi, I’ve had a bad experience over Christmas with a company and have been spending a lot of time going through their complaints process.

They have been really responsive but I’m pretty certain it’s AI talking to me and not a human being.

The good part is the AI is being really nice to me, gushingly agreeing with how bad my experience was, and they are really quick to respond to me. As it’s over the Christmas season I am pleased that a human being doesn’t have to work doing this with me.

But it just feels odd, chatting with ‘someone’ that I’m pretty sure is a machine but is almost pretending to be a person. The experience I had has made me quite upset for various reasons, and it’s almost like I’m emotionally investing in this conversation but it feels so fake.

There’s also the possibility it is an actual person who just talks in a similar way to chat gpt!

I know this is the way of the future now but I find it a bit unsettling? Am I just old fashioned and this is a non issue or do you think I have a point?

As long as my issue gets resolved I don’t care if it is human or bot who does it.

I would have an issue with them presenting AI as human, I prefer total honesty. If they were upfront about it being AI, that would be ok with me, although I have misgivings about humans losing jobs. On the flip side though, I am glad a human won't have to deal with the assholery of some people.

Yes I think the fact I’m quite emotional at the moment is probably making me over think it. Hopefully my issue will get resolved soon.
I’m hoping that will be tomorrow when people start going back to work.

Depends if the issue gets resolved, I had to contact a company about a missing parcel pre Christmas - it was an AI chat bot but it fixed the issue and escalated the delivery.

You can usually get to a point where you say ‘speak to agent/person/request a call back’ if your problem isn’t getting fixed.

I rarely find AI chatbots of any use whatsoever. They can generally only answer simple things that are on the website which I have already looked at.

Maybe it is an actual person then who is using chat gpt or similar to help them compose replies.

Can’t stand the chat bots, they have never been able to help because there is no nuance. It just wastes my time until I can get through to a real person.

Most organisations aren’t using AI in this way yet. It’s likely a chat bot that is pre programmed with responses and prompts to understand how to solve your issue without human intervention if possible.

They use natural language so that it’s easier to get to root cause and provide suitable resolution and engage with you.

most chat bots are labelled in some way when you start to engage to identify themselves as a bot not human.

for AI when it comes around fully, transparency is regulated - so regulated companies must make it clear when and where AI is being used for its customers.

but, you mention being emotionally invested in an online complaints process. Obviously context is key, but simple complaints are the Bain of life for service agents. Repetitive, monotonous, sometimes aggressive. There are many benefits for this work to be automated all round.

Have you input ‘speak to agent’?