Do Consumers Find AI Chatbots Helpful? New Findings Point to Critical Areas for Improvement

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But how helpful do customers actually find them? New CX data suggests that room for improvement still exists across industries and brands. 

On average, only 41% of consumers across the auto, airlines, and telco industries in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil reported that they agreed or strongly agreed that the AI chatbot was "very helpful" in their recent interaction, with a 16-percentage point range between leader and laggard.

Within these regions, airlines led the way in chatbot helpfulness,  with 54% of customers likely to find them very helpful, over 10 percentage points higher than the next closest industry (auto). Contrastingly, only 38% of telco customers said the same. 

JetBlue leads U.S. airlines, other major airlines have an opportunity for differentiation 

Clear industry leaders emerged for U.S. airlines, with JetBlue Airways and the second industry leader respectively scoring 22 and 11 percentage points above the next leading airline. 

However, amongst other major US airlines, chatbot effectiveness ratings were within the same five-point range. By investing in more effective AI chatbot operations, these companies can differentiate themselves from their competitors and close the gap between them and industry leaders. 

In the telco industry, some regions and products show stronger helpfulness than others

In Mexico, for example, little differentiation exists between major industry players, suggesting an opportunity still exists to invest in chatbot programs for a competitive edge within the market. With a score of 45, Izzi is only 5 percentage points ahead of the industry laggard, indicating the perceived differences to Mexican telco consumers are minimal.

For telco companies in the United States, how helpful customers found AI chatbots depended on the product being considered. Mobile and Pay TV both had clear industry leaders who led the pack by a sizeable margin. Among internet providers, scores were much closer to each other, with T-Mobile leading only by a small margin. 

Telco companies may want to segment their AI chatbot priorities based on the product being offered—mobile and Pay TV providers should look to close their gap to leaders while internet providers should seize the current opportunity to gain a lead in chatbot effectiveness.  

Older age groups need more support to get value out of AI chatbots 

Across industries and regions, Gen X and Boomers reported the lowest satisfaction with chatbot helpfulness, with overall scores of 33 and 24 respectively. While airlines fared slightly better with customers over 65, coming in at 37%, these customers still found chatbots much less helpful than their counterparts in the 18-44 age range. 

This echoes general age trends seen in overall customer willingness to use AI chatbots—with 73% of adults 18-44 reporting they are willing to use AI chatbots in at least one episode, compared to 50% of adults over 45. By offering additional support and making it easy for customers to escalate issues to humans, companies can address both willingness to use AI chatbots and, potentially, perception of their helpfulness when they do give it a try. 

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*Source: Dashly