'Are you a real person?': Customers quiz human agents
Call center workers are running into a weird new issue: customers keep thinking they're talking to AI bots, not actual humans.
With companies using more AI in customer service, people are starting to doubt if there's a real person on the other end.
Jessica Lindsey, who takes calls for Concentrix on behalf of American Express, says she often gets asked if she's even human—which just adds to her stress at work.
Call center agents feel the heat
This mix-up isn't rare. Another agent, Seth, hears the same thing from callers almost every week.
Strict scripts and new AI tools make it even harder for customers to tell who's real.
As Lindsey puts it, "I get people who say I sound like a robot or they ask me if I'm a bot."
With AI voice tech booming (expected to hit $50 billion by 2031), it's getting tougher for anyone to know if they're chatting with a person or a machine—changing how we all interact with customer service.