This weekly update shows that AI customer service agents are changing how companies help customers, but the biggest surprise is that human workers are not losing their jobs as fast as many people feared. A major study by Gartner found that only 20% of companies have cut their human customer service workers because of AI. Instead, 42% of companies are actually hiring new people to work with AI systems.

Customers are becoming more impatient than ever. 57% of customers refuse to wait longer than 10 minutes for help, up from 50% just last year. However, during the busy holiday shopping season, 72% of customers said they were willing to wait longer because they understand stores are busy.

The real news is that the best companies are mixing AI and humans together, rather than replacing one with the other. AI is great at handling simple questions like password resets and tracking orders. Humans are better at solving hard problems and understanding how customers feel. When companies let customers talk to a human when they need to, everyone is happier.

During Cyber Week shopping at the end of November and beginning of December, stores that used AI agents saw 32% faster sales growth than stores without them. AI influenced 17% of all orders in the United States during this time. This shows that when AI is set up correctly, it really helps businesses. However, companies that didn't carefully test their AI tools first had problems and unhappy customers.