How in 2026 we'll need more human interactions than ever before
Recently, I read an article talking about how AI is reshaping marketing, and I think the landscape is changing super fast.
When every business started using AI, they thought it would solve all their problems and save a lot of time (and money) by replacing people.
But here's how customers are really reacting:
93.4% of consumers prefer interacting with a human over AI for customer service,
nearly half (49.6%) would literally cancel a service if AI were their only support option.
Although businesses generally seem satisfied with AI, consumers complain that it often feels too robotic, doesn't understand what they're asking, and isn't capable of resolving their issues.
And personally, as a consumer, I agree. Too many times, I've had to spend minutes interacting with a chatbot that didn't understand what I was asking and patiently waited for a real person to jump into the conversation and really solve the problem.
The thing is, AI is turning communication into a commodity.
When everyone can offer instant customer support or send 1,000 personalized emails an hour, what actually stands out? A real human presence.
By now, people can smell a bot from a mile away, so passing off automated interactions as human is not an option.
We thought AI would replace most jobs, but maybe we still need humans after all, now more than ever.
Did you ever feel frustrated as a customer due to AI? How do you handle customer support in your business? I'm curious to know your thoughts!
P.S. Link to the article: https://martech.org/in-2026-human-connection-becomes-marketings-real-advantage/
Replies
Great post, @pamela_arienti!
This is actually a discussion worth having but conveniently ignored by many tech industries in the world.
Most of the stuff you mentioned in this post are real valid concerns.
People seem to be outsourcing everything to AI (including thinking and therapy, hehehe).
Sometimes, I wonder what do people do with the time they save due to AI. Because, people equipped heavily with AI seem a bit impatient towards conventional knowledge sharing, deep conversations, love for the art.
If human is missing, so is humanity. To answer your question at the end, I have observed that orgs are now downsizing and eliminating their customer support team and simultaneously coming up with voice agents and chat models trained on company data using RAG. The experience is not at all good. This is all coming from a person who consistently stayed up-to-date with AI tech and yet lost his job to an AI.
@ashok_nayak thanks for your insights!
I just hope that business owners and founders realize that replacing customer support teams (and other professional figures, actually) completely with AI does more damage than good, and we find a new "normal" way, maybe a blend between humans and AI.
P.S. I think that all the time people save thanks to AI, they just use it to work more lol