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Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

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Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#341

Post by prmoustache »

lacy_tinpot wrote: post #323
victor106 wrote: post #314

>No customer or user wakes up and says, ‘I hope I get to talk to a chat bot or an AI agent today This is so true. I led the implementation of an AI customer service agent and even though management thinks it’s a great success the metrics tell a totally different story. Our customers hated it. I haven’t seen anything in tech that is hated more. Before you think we did a bad job with our solution, I can tell you we wen…

Guarantee this is a generational split. The younger demographics will prefer the AI bot to talk to.

I don't thinks so because the ai bot will reliably give you the answers you could already get from the website to begin with and will never solve your problem. If people are calling or opening an interactive chat, this is because all automatized procedures have already failed and you are in a situation not supported by them.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#342

Post by ozim »

torben-friis wrote: post #92
dbalatero wrote: post #5

I could be wrong, but it feels like one issue is that AI seems to cater more as a signal to venture capital and the internals of the tech industry in a lot of these products, while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour.

>while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour. I would say that undersells the (not neutral, actively negative) impact of AI to many. What many people hear is "made with the tech that plagiarizes, leaves artists (and soon you as well) without a job, and makes things generic and bland!" You might as well ma…

Hard to agree.

No one cares about plagiarism and artists.

I bet lots of people would even be happy that artists get smacked because they see only high profile and rich artists.

Normal people don’t care about AI and are not afraid that it will take their jobs.

They are pissed off because of they are paying customers they expect some level of respect.

AI bots are slap in the face, they ask basic stuff that human operator should infer from the conversation. But you are hit with a dummy that doesn’t solve any of your issues and have to spend time explaining yourself.

Funny part is that’s exactly the same as low income lvl 1 support.

But there is no comparison study. My idea is people are equally pissed off by lvl 1 support that they have to explain stuff in detail and get no real resolution.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#343

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #159
throwaway63467 wrote: post #125

For most consumers AI will be a net negative. Already I can tell more and more companies use it in their call centers and support workflows, often just to stonewall customers: they reply very politely and with great attention to detail but will not solve your issue as they don’t have any decision power. I really don’t look forward to this new world, AI is a powerful and useful too for creators but it will and already…

The problem is a problem of choice I believe. When we use AI ourselves via tools like chatbots, harnesses etc. we are mostly actively choosing to do so, and have some control. We can always just decide to stop and do the work ourselves if its not working out. In the call center/situation of companies embedding it in their products, often its not in a way that gives users the choice. They are forcing it onto their use…

Well you also have to recognize that call centers are a net negative for every organization, especially as (almost) no one makes (B2C) purchases over the phone anymore. Whenever you call a company you are costing them money. With automation, you cost them less money. If they inconvenience you, all that does is discourage you from calling them more, which, again, leads to even more savings for them.

The incentives are perfectly aligned for all of us to absolutely hate interacting with call centers, especially automated ones.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#344

Post by nlarew »

serious_angel wrote: post #306

> Al Ries asserted that a brand is a singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of a prospect. > > Source: https://heidicohen.com/what-is-branding [2011-08-15] The keyword - mind. That is, a human being is supposed to stand behind a "brand", who is responsible for it, and is to be trusted for the product, the effort, the experience they offer.

Your quoted text does not back up your claim. It says brands live in the mind of the customer (i.e. the prospect). It doesn't say anything about a brand representing a real human being.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#345

Post by jcranmer »

gambiting wrote: post #334
fckgw wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is is about management where they can't see how bad and half-baked these customer service agents are, but the customer can tell INSTANTLY they're AI and just not helpful in the slightest

It's like how these automated call handlers that say "Just tell us what you need help with" and then no matter how you phrase the sentence it just doesn't understand what you mean. Great idea in theory, horrendous execution. Bonus points if it automatically disconnects after 3 attempts without finding the right magic word from its dictionary of options.

Oh fucking hell yes, how much I hate that shit. Bring back the "press 5 for XYZ" phone trees, I never have problems getting the systems to understand what I'm trying to indicate there.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#346

Post by fckgw »

Waterluvian wrote: post #16

AI feels like “quick and cheap at the cost of quality” so I completely get why consumers would dislike it while business people love it.

The biggest one that jumps out at me is Amazon replacing their review search box with "Rufus", which searching the entire context of an item on Amazon, including descriptions, reviews, everything. It then wants me to ask it a question instead of doing a boring search for keywords.

If I'm looking at a product and want to search the reviews for the keyword "battery life" and see what real, actual people are experiencing, I can't do that anymore. A search for "battery life" in Rufus always returns some nonsense like "Many customers report good battery life, while others say it's runtime is shorter than expected". I want human experience! I want specifics! Why is everything sanded down to "good or bad"?

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#347

Post by danans »

The consumer-opinion perspective of this survey misses what I think is the main factor in the general public's feelings about AI.

People have a huge capacity to absorb enshittification of everything they consume, from goods /services to culture to politics, if they receive some kind of short term gratification.

But in the back of people's minds, when people hear "AI", is the underlying question: "is it going to take my livelihood?"

IMO that's what motivates the negativity, not some miscalibrated branding.

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#348

Post by duped »

victor106 wrote: post #314

>No customer or user wakes up and says, ‘I hope I get to talk to a chat bot or an AI agent today This is so true. I led the implementation of an AI customer service agent and even though management thinks it’s a great success the metrics tell a totally different story. Our customers hated it. I haven’t seen anything in tech that is hated more. Before you think we did a bad job with our solution, I can tell you we wen…

It wasn't obvious from the project outset that everyone would hate it, no matter how well designed it is?

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#349

Post by jetbalsa »

dylan604 wrote: post #325
victor106 wrote: post #314

>No customer or user wakes up and says, ‘I hope I get to talk to a chat bot or an AI agent today This is so true. I led the implementation of an AI customer service agent and even though management thinks it’s a great success the metrics tell a totally different story. Our customers hated it. I haven’t seen anything in tech that is hated more. Before you think we did a bad job with our solution, I can tell you we wen…

The ever dreaded automated phone systems are more tolerable than the AI driven phone systems. The press 1 for... never tried to make you think someone was actually listening to you, yet the AI services are made to come across like you are talking to a human. Don't try to make people think it's a human.

with the keyboard typing and call center chatter... give me a break

Re: Sixty percent of US consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff

#350

Post by throwaway0123_5 »

data-ottawa wrote: post #124
dbalatero wrote: post #5

I could be wrong, but it feels like one issue is that AI seems to cater more as a signal to venture capital and the internals of the tech industry in a lot of these products, while consumers just want to know "what is this product going to actually do for me," and care less about whether it is implemented with the buzzword du jour.

It’s so hard to find usable products when everything is “XYZ for the Agentic era” Okay… what does that mean?

The funniest one I've noticed lately is a bunch of Capital One ads saying "We built a multi-agentic system for finding a car to buy!"

I'm not saying I 100% wouldn't use AI to help me in product searches, but isn't one of the main selling points of AI that it is general-purpose? Why can't I just boot up ChatGPT and ask it what cars have XYZ things I need? Certainly being informed that Capital One's system is "multi-agentic" doesn't tell me much about what is being offered.

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