Hey there,

Every day, we hear something new about AI – what it is, how it’s evolving, how it will impact us. However, we're still at the infancy of this technology, which means the answer to a lot of AI-related questions is “we just don’t know.”

But there are some myths we can already bust. As time goes on, and rumors spread, it turns out that just like a bad AI chatbot, humans are pretty good at just making things up.

So, here are some of the myths we’re seeing about AI in customer service:

AI will take all customer service jobs
It’s natural to have this fear, but it’s already becoming clear that unique human strengths will continue to play a major role in top-tier customer support. While AI takes on the more repetitive tasks, support teams have a chance to think deeper about their customer experience offering, and handle the more complex cases that ultimately boost customer loyalty. As Des Traynor, Intercom’s Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, said on a recent Intercom podcast: “High urgency, high drama, high emotion. Those are the types of things where humans specialize.”

AI is overhyped
We get it, we also had a healthy dose of skepticism at the beginning, and after the crypto bubble, who wouldn’t? But now that we’re seeing AI dramatically easing the workload of support teams, its power and potential is impossible to ignore. To quote every teenager ever, “It’s not just a phase, mom.”

Customers aren’t ready for AI chatbots
Yes, customers have had a tricky relationship with traditional chatbots, often finding them awkward, unintuitive, and unhelpful. But, the will to self-serve is strong, and considering the power and potential of AI chatbots, 73% of support leaders believe that customers will expect AI-assisted customer service in the next five years. Our recent user research showed that customers are much more confident that an AI chatbot will understand their queries, and ultimately be able to help them.

Hallucinations make AI unsuitable for customer service
This was a major question when ChatGPT first came on the scene – and one of the biggest challenges we faced when trying to build our own AI chatbot. Despite the incredible potential of generative AI, there was no way we could risk a chatbot confidently providing plausible but incorrect information to our customers. However, as the weeks went on, we began building the guardrails and safety measures that form the foundation of our AI chatbot, Fin. Now, companies across a range of industries are finding ways around generative AI’s biggest flaw, and making their customers' lives easier.

OK, that’s enough mythbusting for one day. Hope it helped you break through those AI misconceptions – you can find more thoughts on all things AI in customer service on the Intercom blog.

Until next time,

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