Companies Are Making the Same Mistake With AI That Tesla Made With Robots
upstart writes:
This time three years ago, most people had never heard of generative AI. Today, the technology is a cultural behemoth, and businesses across virtually every industry are facing huge pressure to embrace it.
At least at first glance, customer service would seem to be a field that's particularly ripe for AI-powered automation. Chatbots specialize in fielding simple queries, while newer and more powerful agents can access a business's internal files to provide up-to-date information, send follow-up emails, and perform other complex tasks. Little wonder that a fleet of companies likeSalesforce and Microsoft have been replacing human customer service reps with AI.
New research, however, suggests this could turn out to be a mistake -- that despite the huge amount of marketing gusto that's been poured into selling generative AI-powered customer service tools to businesses, the technology could in fact be doing more harm than good.
You know that relief you feel when you finally get past a customer service bot and an actual person picks up the phone? Turns out most other people seem to feel that way too, even in the age of AI.
[...] "Companies that rushed to cut jobs in the name of AI savings are now facing massive, and often unexpected costs," he told ZDNET. "We've seen customers share examples of AI-generated errors -- like chatbots giving wrong answers, marketing emails misfiring, or content that misrepresents the brand -- and they notice when the human touch is missing."
He added that the backlash has spread to social media.
Some companies have already learned painful lessons about AI's shortcomings and adjusted course accordingly. In one early example from last year, McDonald's announced that it wasretiring an automated order-taking technologythat it had developed in partnership with IBM after the AI-powered system's mishaps went viral across social media.
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