When AI-Driven Chatbots Really Work... And Proof We May Be at Peak AI Frenzy

Story time…

I despise chatbots for customer service, especially when you just know it would be better to talk to a live person...

You've likely been there yourself...

You open the chat box on a website, thinking maybe a real person will be on the other end. But then you wind up with something along the lines of: "Hi, I'm Veronica, a chatbot. What can I help you with today?"

That’s enough to drive anybody back to sitting on hold. After all, sometimes you have to wait as long as you would on a call for an agent. And then, even if a live person winds up being on the other end, they're usually juggling more than just you. The result is a painful delay in response... almost as if you're on dialup.

Enter my latest experience with SiriusXM satellite radio...

For years now I've been on an annual "promotional" plan, which is heavily discounted from the rack rate.

Since I'm on automatic renewal, the company always sends a letter reminding me that my subscription is about to renew, but at the full rate. Usually, I then give customer service a quick call, and play the same old game, with a quick haggle, resulting in pretty much a mildly tweaked version of the "promotional" deal I had the year before.

I even tried it by chat last year – or maybe it was the year before – but it was painfully slow... and the person on the other side was either new or didn't know English very well.

So, here we are in the brave new post-ChatGPT world...

This time I got distracted after receiving the renewal notice and didn't call before the year was up. Then came my new bill, which was double what I had been paying...

I thought about calling, but since I was triple tasking, I might as well try the chatbot, thinking I would just keep on in the background.

Within a few seconds, the first thing it asked me was whether I was calling about my Platinum plan.

I typed, "Yes," and rolled my eyes when the bot came on and said, "Hi Herb. I'm Melody the SiriusXM Virtual Agent."

Then, just as I was about to click it off, the most remarkable thing happened...

Melody the SiriusXM Virtual Agent immediately told me "she" would offer me a "promotion of 12 months" at a rate similar to the one I had been paying.

You can see the whole exchange below...

My new best friend Melody then gave me the terms, a breakdown of the fees – automatically subtracting out the first month's higher price, which it had automatically debited – and in less than two minutes we were done.

All of this is a long-winded way to say... one of the things we've heard about chatbots, like ChatGPT, is that one of the first places they will be used in is customer service. I simply assumed we would all then be stuck in chatbot hell.

And then I met Melody...

Bottom line: We spend a lot of time complaining about the dangers of generative AI... but if this was also its handiwork, then all will not be lost.

In this case, the customer and the company both saved time and money.

That's all you really can ask for.

On the other hand… There will likely be widespread job wipeouts at call centers in India, the Philippines and Southeast Asia. That gets into an entirely different issue, which we’ll save for another day.

Meanwhile, the AI frenzy happened so fast it seemed like it would be rolling over by now...

It very well may be, and if not, here's one sign we might be close...

The company until now known as HIVE Blockchain, which has billed itself as a blockchain miner, has changed its name to HIVE Digital Technologies (HIVE).

HIVE says the rebranding reflects its move "to drive advancements in AI applications such as ChatGPT, to support the new Web3 ecosystem."

There you go, shifting from blockchain to AI... kind of the way Long Island Iced Tea changed its name to Long Blockchain... before it was delisted.

It's almost always a red flag of sorts when companies change their names to fit with the current frenzy... and it's often a sign that things either already have or are close to peaking.

Of course, in this case, I think it's also safe to say that that blockchain as the latest and greatest investment "theme" has now officially ended.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

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DISCLAIMER: This is solely my opinion based on my observations and interpretations of events, based on published facts, and should not be construed as investment advice.

(I write two investment newsletters for Empire Financial Research, Empire Real Wealth and Herb Greenberg’s Quant-X System. For more information, click here and here.)

Feel free to contact me at herbgreenberg@substack.com. You can follow me on Twitter and Threads @herbgreenberg.