AI is currently killing it in customer support
Why I think the future of customer support belongs to AI (and what’s left for humans)
Every now and then, I get to ask people, “Do you think AI will take your job?” Most times, people will say NO, which is fair. We all need a little Optimism Bias to stay sane these days.
But here’s the thing: some jobs are already being eaten alive by AI, and customer support is one of the clearest examples. For years, people said, “Support needs empathy,” or “Support needs context.” True… but the game is changing fast, because AI can do it.
And I’ve seen it up close in some of the companies I’m privy to.
Fin.ai, an AI Agent for customer service, can already handle about 75% of customer questions without a human stepping in, if correctly set up. That means three out of four customers no longer need to talk to a person. And the interesting part? Most don’t even notice.
The limitations
But it still has limitations, and the missing piece right now is context. AI can give good answers from its training data and static documents, but it doesn’t yet have smooth access to live internal systems. Once it can plug directly into internal dashboards, APIs, transaction logs, and user data, I believe AI would be able to answer 95% of support tickets.
Imagine this…
A customer complains about a failed transaction. Before any response can be given, it requires the transaction data and the reason it failed. Right now, AI usually fumbles here and requires human intervention. But what if the AI could log into the system, find the exact transaction, see what went wrong, and apply/offer a fix based on how failed transactions should be addressed (as specified in its training data). And if it still couldn’t solve it, it could ping a human on Slack, get the answer, and return to the customer like nothing happened.
That right there would drastically cut the need for human support agents.
The reality…
Now… does this mean support jobs will vanish? Not completely. Humans will still be needed for tricky cases, emotional situations, and escalations, but AI will, for the most part, take the lead.
So yeah, AI is killing it in customer support. And the priority now shouldn’t be fighting AI, it’s figuring out where humans still matter most.