Who wins and loses when AI runs support?

I had to laugh at the juxtaposition of these two articles on my Linkedin feed yesterday:

People, Not Robots: Bringing the Humanity Back to Customer Support

Conversica raises $31 million to grow its conversational AI sales assistant

The former makes a case for instilling a bit more humanity in our customer interactions. The latter celebrates the triumph and potential of AI to take over the mundane tasks and “free humans from the routine work that limits us reaching our full potential.”

I’m torn on this – I think AI has value in support and sales use cases. The operations side of me loves the potential for efficiency, but if I put myself in the shoes of the customer—I’m not sure the benefit of automation swings in my favor.