I'm not sure why it took so long for people to recognize this. An overwhelming majority of chatbots I've used are utter rubbish and are better served through a regular interface (search, directory listing, etc). Everyone dreads call menus / phone trees - chatbots are largely the same except there are easier & better UX alternatives in an online medium.
I had to call UPS because of a wrong delivery state a few weeks ago. I ended about in their automated phone system where you don‘t anymore press numbers but rather say what you would like. There‘s never an option to talk to a human. I ended up googling and found out a secret keyword to talk to an agent who one can directly say after choosing a language. I never have been connected faster to a human when calling a lar…
The audio from those calls is fed to a team of people who are responsible for teaching the system, so that the next model can be more accurate in directing calls.
I once met someone who had been working that gig while in university. Apparently the vast majority of the recordings are boring and easy enough for a human to classify, but some are just people rattling off swear words, screaming, etc.