This weekly update shows how AI agents are changing customer service around the world. These smart computer helpers are getting better at talking to customers and solving problems.

New AI Technology Gets Smarter

BoldDesk announced its AI 2.0 system this week. This new technology lets companies build different AI helpers for different jobs. Each AI helper can learn from special information like help guides and FAQs. Companies can also make each AI helper sound different to match their brand.

The coolest part is that these AI helpers can now do real tasks by themselves. If a customer asks about their order, the AI can check the computer system and give an answer right away. It can even cancel orders or update information without human help. This happens because of something called Model Context Protocol, which helps AI understand what customers really want.

More Companies Using AI Helpers

A big study found that AI chatbot use grew from 62.7% to 73.8% in just one year. This fast growth shows that companies really want AI helpers. The reason is simple: customers want answers right now.

Research shows that 90% of customers expect immediate responses. Even more surprising, 60% of customers think "immediate" means within 10 minutes or less. Old-style customer service with long wait times just can't keep up with these expectations.

The chatbot market is huge and growing fast. It's worth $7.7 billion right now and expected to grow 23.3% each year until 2030. This shows that AI helpers aren't just a trend - they're becoming a normal part of business.

But Humans Still Matter

Gartner, a famous research company, made an important prediction this week. They said that by 2028, all Fortune 500 companies will still have human customer service workers. This means the biggest companies in America won't go completely AI-only.

Why? Because going fully AI doesn't work as well as companies hoped. Gartner found that by 2027, half of the companies planning to cut lots of human workers will change their minds. The reason is that they can't reach their goals of having no human workers.

Real Company Learns Hard Lesson

Klarna, a "buy now, pay later" company from Sweden, shows why humans still matter. In 2024, they replaced 700 out of 3,000 customer service workers with AI chatbots. At first, this seemed to work well and saved money.

But problems started showing up. Some customer issues were too complicated for AI to handle. Things like identity theft needed human workers who could understand complex situations. The AI helpers couldn't deal with these hard problems properly.

So Klarna had to hire some human workers back. They learned that AI helpers are great for simple questions, but humans are still needed for difficult problems. This matches what other experts say about needing fewer but better-trained human workers.

What This Means for the Future

The best approach seems to be mixing AI and humans together. AI helpers can handle simple questions quickly and work 24 hours a day. They can also speak different languages and never get tired. But humans are still better at understanding feelings and solving complex problems.

Companies are also using AI to help human workers do better jobs. For example, AI can suggest good answers to human workers or look up information quickly. This makes human workers faster and smarter.

The trend is clear: AI helpers will keep growing, but smart companies will use both AI and humans together. This gives customers the best of both worlds - fast answers from AI and human understanding when needed.