GLOBAL – A recent Forbes report states that customers don’t like the AI chatbots companies are rolling out in their customer service. The business magazine cites statistics from SurveyMonkey’s 2026 customer service statistics to prove this point:
- 41% feel that companies’ customer service has worsened because of AI
- 56% express negative feelings about companies using AI in their customer service
- 79% of customers prefer interacting with a human over an AI chatbot
- 89% want the option to speak with a human anytime
The Customers’ Issue With AI Chatbots
Forbes explains that the tech itself isn’t the issue. It’s the fact that companies deploy it “out of context.”
Many of them simply feed the chatbot their FAQ and “call that customer service,” leaving customers with real issues to be caught in a loop and handled by canned scripts that don’t provide resolutions. By the time they get entertained by a human agent, frustration and irritation have already built up in them.
“The lack of human insight into the context, tone, and urgency (or need) by an AI system is the exact reason consumers do not like using them in real-world service applications,” Forbes notes.
How Companies Should Use AI Effectively
AI should support customer service teams rather than have it interact directly with customers. Companies could have AI:
- Pull up the complete client history, including any open issues, so human agents begin the call fully informed
- Document the call summary, update systems, and generate drafts for follow-ups
- Serve as a triage tool, gathering the customer’s basic information and routing them to the right personnel or department
By doing these, companies make their customer experience more human-centered, which helps them win over customers and, possibly, attract new business.
