Your Customers Shouldn’t Have To Choose Between AI And Humans

Jaime Meritt is Chief Product Officer at Verint, overseeing product management for the company’s market-leading CX Automation solutions.

​When I talk to business leaders about AI in customer service today, the conversation often makes it sound like a zero-sum game: Either you’re automating customer service or you’re doubling down on human agents.

This framing creates a false binary.​

Customers are telling us exactly what they want from customer service, and it’s much simpler than the industry is making it seem: Customers want their issues resolved, full stop. Whether or not AI or a human resolves the issue doesn’t necessarily matter—as long as it’s done quickly.​

My company, Verint, surveyed 5,000 U.S. consumers between January 5 and February 13, 2026, about this. Sixty-one percent said they prefer speaking to a human over AI, an increase of five percentage points year over year. Yet 69% of those admitted they’d switch to an automated service if it could fully resolve their issue (a number that jumps to 93% among younger customers).

Customers are looking to maximize their outcomes, and they don’t care how those outcomes are delivered.

For many organizations, that means some workflows can and should be fully automated, such as an intelligent virtual assistant answering common questions or completing routine tasks. Meanwhile, more complex, sensitive or high-risk interactions should keep a human in the loop.​​

The Better Solution: A Hybrid Human-AI Workforce​

AI isn’t a silver bullet; it’s a tool, and, sometimes, it’s a teammate. I use AI tools every day, but I’m not going to hand my business over to it. I’m constantly guiding, course-correcting and managing bots the same way I would with a human colleague or a direct report.

Thinking of AI as a collaborator instead of a replacement for people unlocks a different vision of a hybrid human-AI workforce, where AI is designed to help humans work better, smarter and faster.​