A recent No Jitter article by analyst Robin Gareiss of Metrigy offers less than encouraging news for those hoping to see rapid adoption of AI for customer-facing interactions: Consumers overwhelmingly prefer human agents in the era of AI is the title, which pretty much says it all.

Metrigy’s original research finds that almost 85% of those surveyed prefer dealing with a human to an AI interaction. Quite simply, Robin writes, “Customer acceptance of AI will continue to be slower than most businesspeople want.” We saw a real-world example of this last year, when Klarna reinstated many contact center agent positions, after eliminating 700 such roles in 2023.

Robin also makes an interesting point that I think everyone in our industry should take to heart. AI is now a cultural phenomenon as much as it is a technology, which means that enterprises must not only deal with what their own systems can or can’t accomplish for the customer. Rightly or wrongly, your AI implementations are going to be judged by what your customers have come to believe (based on other experiences) about AI in general. And though Robin doesn’t address this in her article, I can’t help but think your internal end users will have much the same attitude and will bring their own set of preconceived ideas to the AI-enabled collaboration and other productivity tools you provide them.

This reality will affect how your enterprise invests in AI, and how you guide those investments as a technology leader. We’re going to tackle this perspective in a keynote panel at Enterprise Connect 2026, when contact center analyst Sheila McGee-Smith moderates a session entitled, Does More Technology = Happier Customers? Among the questions we’ve asked Sheila and her panel of execs from top contact center vendors:

• Do customers want to do more self-service?
• Can agents really handle more complex and contentious customer problems, or will they burn out?
• What tools do we have to improve agent and customer experience, and how do we know they work?

Each year we’re finding that Enterprise Connect, as much as it may need to deliver solid, impartial information on technology itself, must contextualize that information so that technology leaders can make the right decisions about where to invest, what to recommend to the business, and how fast to move. You can’t make those decisions unless you understand what’s really going on with users, both internal and external. Our program in Las Vegas next month offers you both the information you need, and the broader understanding that’s crucial to using that information for your enterprise’s benefit. I hope to see you March 10 – 12 at Caesar’s Forum as we come together to share ideas and information to help you do this job.

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