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A comment on Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff. Parent comment

Re:Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging... by ck2 on Wednesday June 17, 2026 @09:15AM (#48570092)
Is anyone old enough to remember the switch from customer call centers having a human quickly answer to long long annoying phone menus because that friction, getting the customer to do some work or busy distraction, somehow saved costs for the company?

No-one likes phone menus and immediately wants to escape them (then they disable pressing 0 for human)

"AI" to me means the exact same thing

company wants to cut costs by eliminating human labor to increase profits

it means things are going to be wildly inconvenient with limited options

it ALWAYS means it's going to be worse

Hide your "AI", no-one is impressed or excited about it, quite the opposite

If it's a website, if I can't block your "AI" via javascript, I'll do it via CSS

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging... by ilaksh on Wednesday June 17, 2026 @09:26AM (#48570231)
LLMs are replacing a lot of the inflexible phone menus, and in leading implementations, can do all of the things a human could do. Or at least, make a recommendation for things it can't do that just require a human to hit an accept button.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging... by slumberlust on Wednesday June 17, 2026 @09:53AM (#48570610)
I haven't experienced any chatbot or telebot that can do anything for me. The whole reason I'm calling is that the self service wasn't successful.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging... by butlike on Wednesday June 17, 2026 @10:01AM (#48570693)
Yell "HELP HELP" into the chatbot and see if it calls 911 for you.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging... by marcosdumay on Wednesday June 17, 2026 @12:29PM (#48572802)
> No-one likes phone menus and immediately wants to escape them (then they disable pressing 0 for human)

They beat waiting for somebody to answer the phone just to tell you they are sending the call to somebody else and you'll have to explain everything again.

The sequences where you authenticate on the menu and no person is allowed to ask for authentication information makes sense too. I don't think anybody actually like it, but it is better than the alternative.

Nobody likes badly designed menus.

[ Parent | on HN ]