Maskot/ Getty Images
Is artificial intelligence actually useful in the real world. Is it worth paying extra for this technology?
One positive answer is supposed to come from customer service call centers, where AI has the potential to either replace or supplement legions of human employees handling questions from confused and sometimes grumpy consumers.
Earlier this year, startup Klarna said an AI assistant based on OpenAI's models was doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time customer-service agents. Last week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella cited what's happening in contact centers with its Dynamics software as an example AI being deployed successfully.
The problem is that no one really wants their customer-service questions handled by machines. Not even the young'uns.
That's according to research from Morgan Stanley, which has been closely tracking AI adoption this year.
The investment bank surveys its interns from time to time, to get a gut-check on tech usage from younger people who will grow into tomorrow's big consumers.
The bank recently asked these interns about using AI-powered customer-service agents. The results were not pretty. It's another warning to the tech industry about the potential limits of AI adoption in practical situations.
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley's analysts noted that AI models should improve, helping machines to solve more customer-service questions and complaints. But they also highlighted another risk.
"In many cases technology improvement in and of itself cannot force behavioural change that is generally slow and iterative — particularly emotionally-driven complaints or trust-centric conversations," they wrote in a note this week to investors.
This makes sense intuitively. When you have problem, especially one involving something you paid real money for, you want to be heard by a human who feels your pain and is capable of fixing the issue asap, ideally by cutting through red tape and just getting it done.
The AI reality is nowhere near that at the moment. Take Klarna's AI customer-service agents.
Software engineer Gergely Orosz tried this Klarna technology out by calling up with questions.
"Underwhelming," was his conclusion.
When he asked about something, the AI bots regurgitated information that was already available from Klara.
Anything beyond that?
"I'm boom talking with a human agent," he wrote.
