Companies around the world are using artificial intelligence to help their customer service teams work better and faster. This week showed big changes in how businesses handle customer support in 2026.

One major piece of news came from Booking Holdings, a big travel company. On February 19, they said they cut their customer service costs by about 10% for each booking using AI. Even better, they had more customers at the same time, so their costs went down while their business grew. The company's leader said artificial intelligence makes customer service much better and faster.

But here is something important to know: companies are learning that using only AI is not always the best idea. Some companies, like Klarna, cut down their workers to use only AI. Then they had to hire people back because the AI could not handle everything. By 2027, half of all companies that cut workers because of AI will probably hire people again.

The biggest trend this week is something called agentic AI. This is different from regular AI chatbots. Agentic AI can actually do things, not just give you information. For example, if you tell an AI agent you need a refund, it can look at your order, approve the refund, and send it to you—all by itself. According to predictions, agentic AI will handle most customer support by 2029.

Experts say the best way to use AI is to have it work with people, not instead of people. Companies should use AI to help workers do their jobs better. This way, customers still have a quick way to talk to a real person when they need to.

More and more companies are planning to spend money on AI. On average, organizations expect to spend 5% of their budget on AI in 2026, which is much more than the 3% they spent in 2025. About 85% of customer service leaders plan to test AI with their customers by the end of 2026.