British Gas Owner Slammed for Claiming 90% of Customers Prefer AI Bots Over Humans
nordicinst · x · 2026-07-28
Centrica, the owner of British Gas, announced the layoff of 1,300 call centre and back office jobs, claiming that 90% of customers prefer digital channels over speaking to a person, noting a 20% drop in calls.
A reader's letter published by The Guardian strongly refutes this narrative, arguing that customers are forced into using AI chatbots. The author points out that large corporations deliberately hide phone numbers and create barriers to access, pushing customers toward digital channels to cut costs. This shift exports the time and effort of customer service onto the consumer, rather than reflecting a genuine preference for bot interactions.
More from AGI Musings
- OpenAI economic research says AI is reshuffling tasks across occupations — soumitrashukla9 · 2026-07-28
- Jensen Huang says AI destroys tasks, not jobs, and creates new work — garrytan · 2026-07-28
- AI power may concentrate in compute and clouds, not just model labs — GavinSBaker · 2026-07-28
- A new ASI essay argues civilization-scale acceleration is more plausible than hard takeoff — i_dg23 · 2026-07-28
- Aaron Hertzmann says the brain is not a computer, raising the stakes for AGI — yacineMTB · 2026-07-28
- Why serious people may be dismissing AI safety events too quickly — austinc3301 · 2026-07-28