If you only read AI vendor decks, you’d think the future of CX is “no humans, all bots.”
The actual data is almost the opposite.
Across multiple large surveys, the pattern is loud and clear:
- People are okay with AI.
- They are not okay with losing humans.
- What they really want is human support, boosted by AI, not replaced by it.
Let’s walk through the evidence, then talk about what that means for your CX, Support, and Success teams.
1. The Reality Check: Customers Don’t Want AI to Replace Humans
A few big data points:
Gartner: “Please don’t use AI for service.”
Gartner’s 2024 customer survey found:
- 64% of customers would prefer that companies didn’t use AI at all for customer service.
- 53% would consider switching to a competitor if they found out a company was going to use AI for service.
Top concerns?
- Difficulty reaching a real agent
- Fear that AI will displace human jobs
So when leaders say, “We’ll just let AI handle support,” understand that most customers actively don’t want that.
Qualtrics: human connection is the foundation of a winning AI strategy
Qualtrics’ 2024 global consumer trends report (28,000+ respondents, 26 countries) puts it bluntly:
- “Human connection is the foundation of a winning AI strategy.”
- Consumers are already frustrated with digital support.
- They worry that AI will erode human connection, especially when something goes wrong.
They’re not rejecting AI wholesale. They’re rejecting AI instead of humans.
CX Today/Verint: even CX pros want a legal right to a human
A 2025 CX Today piece, drawing on Verint’s State of Customer Experience 2025, notes:
- 66% of businesses admit their customers still prefer talking to humans over bots.
- 61% of CX professionals think governments should mandate a right to speak to a human in customer service.
When the people running contact centers are calling for a legal right to speak to a human, you know this isn’t just customer nostalgia; it’s an operational reality.
Banking: even for simple queries, people still prefer humans
Deloitte’s work on AI in banking, summarized in multiple industry write-ups, shows:
- Around 74% of banking customers still prefer talking to a human agent for routine queries, despite chatbots being everywhere.
- Customers use bots mainly for:
- Speed
- Simple questions
- But when something’s even slightly confusing or high-stakes, they want a person.
Banking is a good proxy here: highly digital, highly automated, still deeply human when money and risk are involved.
Five9 and others: humans are still the default preference
Five9’s 2024 consumer survey (also covered by Retail Customer Experience) finds:
- 75% of consumers still prefer talking to a real human for customer support.
- Nearly half don’t trust information from AI bots, and more than half say they’re often frustrated by AI chatbots.
Other syntheses (HubSpot, Intercom, etc.) echo the same theme:
- People are happy to use AI for simple, low-stakes tasks.
- For anything nuanced, emotional, or consequential, they want:
- A human
- With an easy path to reach them
HBR: people don’t want AI to seem human
Harvard Business Review’s Research: Consumers Don’t Want AI to Seem Human finds something subtle but important:
- People actively dislike overly human-like AI.
- What they value is:
- Transparency (clearly knowing it’s AI)
- Clarity about which humans are behind the system
- Easy escalation to those humans
Their conclusion:
The path forward is highlighting the humans in AI, not trying to make AI pretend to be human.
That’s exactly what a good CX org can design and communicate.
2. What Customers Actually Want From AI in Service
Taken together, these studies don’t say “no AI.”
They say customers want:
- Faster answers to simple questions
- 24/7 coverage for basic stuff
- Less repetition (“Don’t make me re-explain my issue”)
- Clear paths to humanswhen:
- Stakes are high
- Emotions are high
- The AI clearly doesn’t get it
Most people are comfortable with AI assisting humans:
- Pulling up context
- Suggesting responses
- Summarizing prior interactions
- Recommending next best actions
They just don’t want AI to:
- Be a wall between them and a human
- Pretend to be human
- Make them feel like the company is dodging them
IBM’s 2025 view on the future of AI in customer service captures this nicely: AI becomes a real-time partner for agents, handling the grunt work so humans can focus on complex, emotional problems with empathy.
3. The Emerging Design Pattern: AI Front-End, Human Backbone
Media, analysts, and operators are converging on the same long-term pattern:
AI front-ends + human CX backbone.
AI handles routine work, triage, and assistance.
Human teams handle exceptions, emotions, and the relationship.
Think about it in three layers.
Layer 1: AI as the “first responder.”
AI is great at:
- Answering FAQs
- Checking order or account status
- Resetting passwords/simple changes
- Routing issues based on intent
- Pulling together context from multiple systems
Here, AI:
- Reduces friction
- Cuts cost to serve
- Speeds up resolution for low-complexity issues
Layer 2: Humans as the relationship + judgment layer
Humans step in when:
- The stakes are high (money, health, safety, contracts)
- The customer is upset, confused, or anxious
- Multiple systems and policies collide
- Tradeoffs need to be explained, not just executed
Here, humans:
- Use AI-generated context and suggestions
- Make nuanced calls
- Provide empathy, reassurance, and real accountability
Layer 3: CX/CS leadership as the architect
The critical piece, and where your leadership comes in, is:
- Designing when and how AI is used
- Deciding where human handoffs happen
- Writing the playbookfor:
- Escalation rules
- Tone and expectations
- Transparency (“Here’s where we use AI, and here’s when you’ll talk to a human”)
This is not a temporary “transition phase.”
Everything in the research points to this as the long-term equilibrium:
- More AI under the hood
- More human time concentrated where it matters most
- CX, Support, and Success teams acting as the designers of that balance
4. The Risk of Ignoring This: The Trust Recession
One last point the research raises: if you get this balance wrong, you don’t just annoy customers. You erode trust.
Tech and CX analysts are talking about a “trust recession” in AI-powered experiences:
- One 2025 analysis notes 91% of users had a frustrating digital experience in the past year, and 70% would consider switching brands after just one bad AI-supported service interaction.
The pattern of failure is predictable:
- AI is deployed mainly to cut costs
- Human access becomes harder
- Customers feel:
- Blocked
- Unheard
- Pushed through a script
That’s where you get:
- Churn
- Complaints
- Regulators stepping in (see the proposed US “right to human support” bills and the debate around them).
The fix is not “less AI.”
It’s a better-designed AI with clearly visible humans behind it.
5. Quick Self-Check: Are You Giving Customers Humans With AI Superpowers?
Pick your support/CX/success org and run this in 5 minutes.
- Can customers easily reach a human?
- Yes – every AI experience has a clearly marked, low-friction path to a person.
- No – they have to fight the system, repeat themselves, or guess.
- Do customers know when they’re talking to AI vs a human?
- Yes – we label AI clearly and explain how it helps.
- No – we blur the line or try to make AI “feel human.”
- How are you using AI with your teams?
- Mostly to assist humans (context, summaries, suggestions, drafts).
- Mostly to replace humans (hard gates, endless bot loops).
- Who owns the AI + human journey design?
- CX/Support/Success leadership is deeply involved and accountable for outcomes.
- It’s mostly a tech project; CX teams are “users,” not designers.
- Trust & satisfaction trends
- We see AI improving CSAT/NPS and complaint rates.
- We’re not sure, or complaints about “the bot” are rising.
If you’re mostly in the second column, you don’t have an AI problem.
You have a design and leadership problem in how humans and AI work together.
Where The Scale Crew Fits In
This is exactly the space The Scale Crew is built to work in.
With our expanded scope across:
- Customer Experience
- Customer Support
- Customer Success
- AI Readiness & Transformation
…we help startups, SMBs, and mid-market firms:
- Avoid the “AI wall” mistake, where bots become a barrier instead of a bridge
- Design AI front-ends with a human backbone, not the other way around
- Give your CX, Support, and Success teams AI superpowers:
- Faster answers
- Richer context
- Better plays
- More time for the moments that actually create loyalty, retention, and expansion
We’re not here to rip out your human teams.
We’re here to make them the differentiator your competitors can’t copy, with AI doing the heavy lifting under the surface.
If You Want to Turn “Humans With AI Superpowers” Into a Real Strategy
We’ll help you see:
- Where AI can genuinely make service faster and smoother
- Where humans must stay central (and how to make that visible)
- How to architect an AI + human CX model that builds trust and loyalty, instead of quietly burning it down.
