The Human Advantage in Customer Service: Where AI Assists, Humans Resolve

During the 2025 holiday season, AI had a breakout year in customer service. It showed up in retail chat widgets, return portals, order tracking flows, and automated phone menus. For many brands, AI became the first place customers landed when something went wrong. 

And in plenty of cases, that worked. Customers got faster answers. Basic requests were handled quickly. The service journey felt more available. 

But speed is not the same as support. 

When Liveops surveyed holiday shoppers, the signal was clear: 54% said humans delivered better service than AI.  

That single stat is not a rejection of AI. It is a reminder of what customer service actually is at its core: a human experience, especially when the stakes rise. 

The goal for leaders in 2026 is not to choose sides. It’s to build a service model where AI strengthens humans, and humans bring what AI still cannot consistently deliver: context, judgment, empathy, and trust. 

Read the full 2025 holiday AI + customer service report

The Real Problem Is Not AI, It’s Bad Service Design 

Most customer frustration with “AI support” is not frustration with technology. It’s a frustration with how technology is used. 

Customers are generally fine with automation when they are trying to do something simple: 

• Find an order status 

• Get a return label 

• Reset a password 

• Confirm store hours 

• Update shipping details 

The experience breaks when AI is treated like a guard at the door instead of a guide. When the bot loops, misreads the intent, or cannot adapt to nuance, customers do not feel helped. They feel blocked. 

That is why escalation matters. For instance, in Liveops’ retail report research, 55% of shoppers said they had to escalate an AI handled issue to a human.  

Escalation is not failure. Poor escalation is failure. 

A strong experience makes it easy to move from automation to a person, and it carries the context forward so the customer does not have to repeat themselves. A weak experience makes the customer fight their way to help, then starts them over at the beginning. 

Customers Want Confidence, Not Just Convenience 

The best service experiences do two things at once: 

1. They reduce effort 
2. They increase confidence 

AI can reduce effort. Humans build confidence. 

Confidence comes from feeling understood, not just responded to. It comes from a person recognizing what is happening, asking the right follow-up question, and making a decision that fits the moment. Customers remember that kind of interaction, especially when it saves a relationship that was on the edge. 

This is also why the “AI everywhere” strategy can backfire. Gartner found that 64% of customers would prefer that companies NOT use AI for customer service.  

That number does not mean customers hate innovation. It means customers have lived through too many experiences where AI created extra effort, not less. 

Leaders should read that stat as a warning label: if you deploy AI without protecting the human experience, customers will blame the brand, not the bot. 

Where Humans Still Win 

Humans outperform AI most clearly in the moments that are hardest to script. These moments share a few traits: 

They are emotional.
The customer is stressed, disappointed, or anxious. 

They are ambiguous.
The customer cannot describe the issue cleanly, or the issue spans multiple systems. 

They involve exceptions.
Policy meets reality, and the “right answer” is not always the literal one. 

They have consequences.
A missed delivery matters because it is a gift. A return issue matters because money is tight. A billing error matters because it impacts a family budget. 

In these moments, customers are not looking for information. They are looking for help. Humans provide help by combining empathy with action: listening, interpreting, and resolving in a way that feels fair. 

That is why the most effective strategy is not “AI first” or “human first.” It is task first. Use AI to handle tasks that benefit from speed and consistency. Use humans to handle situations that benefit from care and judgment. 

The Winning Model: AI As an Assistant, Humans as the Face 

The brands that earn loyalty will treat AI as a behind-the-scenes assistant that strengthens human performance. Not a replacement for it. 

Here is what “AI supporting humans” looks like in practice: 

Better context at the start of the interaction
AI can gather the reason for contact, confirm order details, and summarize what the customer already tried, so the human starts with clarity. 

Faster access to the right answer
AI can surface knowledge base articles, policies, and workflow steps in real time so humans spend less time searching and more time solving. 

Smarter routing, fewer transfers
AI can triage intent and route to the right specialist so customers do not bounce between queues. 

Stronger conversation quality without robotic scripts
AI can suggest phrasing, tone adjustments, and empathy language, while the human keeps the conversation natural. 

Cleaner handoffs across channels
If a customer starts in chat and moves to voice, AI can carry the story forward so customers do not repeat themselves. 

Notice what this approach avoids. It avoids pushing customers into a bot loop. It avoids forcing automation to handle complex issues just because it is cheaper. It avoids treating customer frustration as “deflection success.” 

This approach also elevates the human role. Humans become more consistent, more informed, and more confident. And customers feel that. 

A Simple Leadership Framework For 2026 

If you want a practical way to pressure test your service strategy, use these three questions: 

1) Are we automating the right things?
If the issue requires empathy, judgment, or exception handling, it should reach a human quickly. 

2) Is escalation easy and seamless?
Escalation should be obvious, fast, and context-rich. The human should pick up where the automation left off. 

3) Are we measuring what actually matters?
Speed metrics are useful, but they are incomplete. Track resolution, repeat contacts, and customer effort. If AI reduces handle time but increases repeat contacts, you did not improve service. 

The future belongs to brands that optimize for trust, not just throughput. 

Where Liveops Fits In 

Liveops helps brands deliver human-led customer support, strengthened by AI and automation in the places that make service smoother and more consistent. 

When demand spikes hit retail, during holiday peaks, promotions, product drops, or unexpected disruptions, Liveops helps you scale coverage with agents within our network while keeping performance aligned to your brand expectations and customer needs. That includes handling high-volume customer service conversations, resolving complex issues that require judgment, and stepping in when automation reaches its limits. 

Just as important, we help make the human experience better through operational design and smart tools. AI and automation can support faster triage and routing, tighter knowledge access, and better continuity across channels so customers do not have to repeat themselves. And with precision scheduling in 30-minute intervals, brands can align coverage to real demand patterns, protecting service quality during surges without overstaffing during quieter periods. 

The takeaway is simple: AI can handle more tasks, but humans still carry the relationship. When you combine both intentionally, you get service that feels fast, personal, and reliable. 

The Bottom Line 

AI is not the enemy of human service. Misuse is. 

Customers are signaling what they want: convenience when the issue is simple, and a real person when it is not. Liveops’ holiday research confirms that humans still outperform AI in overall service quality, even as automation becomes more common.  

The brands that win in 2026 will not chase “AI everywhere.” They will build “human plus AI” systems that protect trust, reduce effort, and make every interaction feel like someone is actually listening.