Customer Service

Human touch remains supreme with consumers needing help

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September 12, 2025

A hefty majority, 88%, of consumers are satisfied with interactions handled by human customer service agent compared to 60% who feel the same about AI-driven help interactions.

Those are top findings from Verizon's CX Annual Insights report that reveals the future of CX isn't just about implementing AI but strategically integrating it to amp up human connections and address customer frustrations, according to a press release.

The report, which polled 5,000 consumers and 500 senior executives across seven countries, revealed additional findings:

The single biggest source of consumer frustration with automated interactions is the inability to speak or chat with a live human agent when needed, according to the report. Nearly half of all consumers (47%) cited this as their top annoyance. Brands themselves recognize this, with a similar percentage of executives reporting this as the main complaint they receive about AI-enabled interactions.

Despite personalization being a top AI use case for brands, most consumers aren't seeing the benefits. In fact, more consumers said personalization has detracted from their overall experience (30%) than improved it (26%). A significant factor is data privacy, with 65% of executives stating that data privacy rules limit their ability to use AI for personalization. Just over half, 54%, of consumers report a decline in their trust in companies to use their personal data properly.

"The future of CX isn't about AI replacing humans; it's about using AI to make human interactions better," Daniel Lawson, SVP, global solutions at Verizon Business, said in the release. "Businesses that use AI to preempt customer needs, empower their employees, and enhance personalization while respecting privacy will be the market leaders of tomorrow."

In its fifth year, Verizon's CX Annual Insights report was conducted by Longitude, a Financial Times company.