Consumers Still Prefer People in Customer Service – So What Is AI Really Good For?

Every time I hit a chatbot wall when I just want to talk to a person, I feel slightly more resistant to “automation.” I know I’m not alone. Recent customer experience research keeps repeating the same message: most consumers still prefer human‑led customer service, even as investments in AI and automation accelerate.

A recent Customer Experience (CX) Dive article reports that more than three‑quarters of consumers say interacting with a human “always” or “often” leads to better outcomes in customer service, and only a tiny fraction say they want to deal exclusively with generative AI chatbots. In a 2024 study, Five9 found that 75% of consumers prefer talking to a real person – in person or on the phone – for support, underlining how important trust, empathy, and nuance still are in CX. SurveyMonkey’s 2026 “Humans vs AI” data tells a similar story: about four in five Americans strongly prefer interacting with a human over an AI agent, mainly because they feel humans understand their needs better and provide more thorough explanations when something goes wrong.

This doesn’t mean AI has failed in customer service. As Jim Sterne points out in his LinkedIn Learning course “Artificial Intelligence for Marketing: Conversation Bots,” chatbots are very effective when questions have clear, specific answers and customers keep asking the same things in slightly different ways. In those scenarios, bots can handle FAQs, order status, schedule changes, or basic policy questions at scale, freeing human agents from repeating the same information thousands of times. The point is not to replace people, but to let automation handle routine tasks so humans can focus on the toughest questions, where experience, judgment, and empathy matter most.

At the same time, if customers say they want people, then “people in customer service” also need better access to AI. Too often, agents are expected to deliver empathy and fast answers without the right tools or information. Agent‑assist platforms and AI‑powered knowledge systems can surface real‑time suggestions, context, and next‑best actions so human agents are not “flying blind,” but supported by the same intelligence that powers bots. In other words, AI should not only face the customer – it should sit behind the agent, giving them superpowers.

At the same time, the underlying technology is moving fast. The acquisition of Amelia by SoundHound AI is one example of how voice AI and enterprise conversational platforms are coming together to support large‑scale customer interactions across channels. Industry coverage, including multiple articles in audioXpress, shows how voice assistants with generative AI are being embedded into connected devices and vehicles, from in‑car assistants for Stellantis brands in Europe to agentic, multilingual communication platforms demonstrated at CES and Mobile World Congress. audioXpress has also been following companies like Deepgram as they roll out advanced conversational speech recognition models and partner with IBM to bring more natural voice capabilities into enterprise AI workflows.

When you put the customer data and the industry trend lines side by side, a simple pattern emerges. Customers are open to AI when it saves them time on simple, repetitive tasks, but they still strongly prefer people in high‑stakes, complex, or emotionally charged situations. A useful way to think about it is as a simple model for the next few years: AI will increasingly become the first touchpoint for straightforward, low‑complexity interactions, while human agents become more specialized and more empowered for the moments that really matter.

Personally, I still dislike talking to machines. I tend to avoid bots when my question doesn’t fit into a neat FAQ, or when I’ve already tried self‑service and it didn’t work. Looking at the data, that’s not a “problem” I need to fix in myself – it’s how most consumers feel today, especially for complex, emotional, or high‑risk issues. The real challenge for brands is not to convince customers to love automation, but to design AI around human preferences: let machines handle the boring, repetitive work, and make it easier, not harder, to reach a person when we really need one.

Do you still insist on talking to a person in customer service – or are there cases where you now prefer a bot? I’d love to hear what makes the difference for you.

• Bryan Wassel, “Consumers prefer talking to people in customer service,” Customer Experience Dive, March 2026.

• Five9, “New Five9 Study Finds 75% of Consumers Prefer Talking to a Human for Customer Service,” October 2024.

• SurveyMonkey, “Customer Service Statistics 2026: Humans vs AI Trends,” February 2026.

• Kinsta, “Consumers prefer human customer service over AI, survey says,” April 2025.

• Hiver, “AI vs Human in Customer Service: What Our 2025 Report Reveals,” 2024.

• Jim Sterne, “Artificial Intelligence for Marketing: Conversation Bots,” LinkedIn Learning course, 2020.

• audioXpress and related industry coverage on voice AI and embedded assistants in connected devices and vehicles, including generative AI voice assistants rolling out in Stellantis vehicles across Europe and other deployments showcased at CES and MWC, 2024–2026.