Key Takeaways

  • Human agents may be key to consumer trust in AI: According to a survey of 3,000 consumers released last month by Five9, four out of five consumers said they would be willing to use AI-driven customer service if they knew there was a path to reach a human agent.
  • The availability of human agents can boost trust in AI, even if it is unrelated to the technology's effectiveness. More than half (55%) of consumers said they trust AI when clear human contact options are provided; when no human option is available, this proportion drops to about one-quarter.
  • The survey also found that 41% of consumers said they would be less likely to use a company if it used AI for customer service; this figure rises to 53% if they cannot reach human support.

Deep Insights

Consumers recognize AI's potential to improve customer experience, but they want clear disclosure and want human agents as a safeguard,Related coverage can be found here。

According to Christopher Sladdin, senior director analyst at Gartner, customers often focus more on how AI improves speed and convenience rather than accuracy. Gartner's research found that the top three factors driving customers to use AI over human agents are: 24/7 availability, the ability to save time, and the option to transfer to a human when necessary.

Distrust in accuracy is also reflected in Five9's research: consumers reported some issues that AI can handle but should not handle without human supervision.

For example, more than half of consumers believe AI can accurately check order and account status, but only slightly over one-third think AI should do this independently without human assistance.

Sladdin noted that disclosure is key to winning customer trust. Gartner's research found that about three-quarters of consumers want to know when they are interacting with content generated by generative AI, but many customers are not aware of this,See details here。

This is also a problem for businesses. Five9 also surveyed 600 customer experience and contact center decision-makers, showing that contact center decision-makers ranked consumer consent and notification as one of the top three challenges in AI implementation, second only to data security and privacy, and reliability issues.

Sladdin believes that disclosure and human support are both necessary components of building a trustworthy AI experience for customers.

"Whether it's chatbots, virtual customer assistants, AI-generated customer review summaries, or AI-driven personalization, every AI use case needs to be labeled, disclosed, and explained, with opt-out mechanisms and easy paths for escalation or appeal, and always provide customers with the option to contact a human when they deem it necessary," Sladdin said in an email.