Your customer service representative would like to speak to a human

Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI Customer service workers have gotten used to the now-common question coming from the other end of the line: "Wait, are you an AI?" Being mistaken for the technology your employer hopes will replace you has become a regular, if awkward, part of the job. Now, the people who staff call centers are finding themselves in a perhaps stranger position, wondering if it's actually the "customer" that's a robot . Those suspicions are proving to be true. AI agents are increasingly being used to call customer-service lines, sit on hold, and try to negotiate bills or cancel subscriptions, all while the people they're "working" for don't lift a bureaucratic finger. With user-friendlier agents such as Meta's Muse and the upstart Instinct on the market, more consumers are giving AI deployment a go.