I was on the wrong end of some (presumably) LLM powered support via ebay's chatbot earlier this week and it was a completely terrible experience. But that's because ebay haven't done a very good job, not because the idea of LLM-powered support is fundamentally flawed.
When implemented well it can work great.
Unfortunately, the human behind it was not technically-savvy enough to clarify a point, so I had to either accept the LLM response, or quit trying. But at least it saved me the time from trying to explain to a level 1 support person that I knew exactly what I was asking about.
"Every program attempts to expand until it has a built in LLM."
If my mechanic answered with an LLM I’d take my car elsewhere.
More generally, when done well, RAG is really great. I was recently trying out a new bookkeeping software (manager.io), and really appreciated the chatbot they've added to their website. Basically, instead of digging through the documentation and forums to try to find answers to questions, I can just ask. It's great.
Spoken word is still the most information dense way for humans to communicate abstract ideas in real time.
Reading > Listening
Speaking > Typing
If you want raw performance on both sides, It is better to dictate an email that gets read later.
in that medium, llms are so much better than old phonetrees and waiting on hold
additionally for many use cases it's not feasible from an eng standpoint to expose a separate api for each entire workflow, instead they typically have many smaller composable steps that need to be strung together in a certain order depending on the situation
its well fit for an llm + tools
Just to be clear, the LLM assistant could be a great supplement to the app for people with disabilities or those who struggle with phone apps for whatever reason, but for most people the LLM phone call seems worse.
I'll switch to the AI chat where it lets you select your order and I'll do the same thing, and it has no issue telling me it can give me a refund and process it instantly.
So my case, the two seem to behave differently. And these are on items that say they're eligible for refunds to begin with when you first order them.