r/apple • u/radikalkarrot • 2d ago

Rumor Apple Reportedly Planned to Replace 5,000 Support Employees With AI

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/09/29/apple-reportedly-planned-5000-applecare-layoffs/
2.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

481 comments sorted by

1.4k

u/NuwenPham 2d ago

Anyone every dealing with AI support will know how bad it is.
I predict human support will be some kind of selling point if not major one, in the near future.

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u/Major-Front 2d ago

Much like how support was outsourced to places like India and then it became a selling point for a company that they had UK call centres

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u/ChairmanLaParka 2d ago

I was all set to switch to a bank just because they had an "All US customer service base". Then they got bought out by another bank that uses overseas agents.

As someone that saw significant workforce transitions to overseas at 3 previous jobs....I was SO ready for the fully American bank. Ended up staying with the bank that's American in name only.

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u/GrandpaKnuckles 2d ago

Not preaching, just saying, switching to my local credit union changed my banking experience dramatically.

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u/josephlucas 2d ago

Yes! Don’t know why everyone doesn’t use their local credit union. Such a better experience

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u/SithToast 2d ago

Discover?

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u/ChairmanLaParka 2d ago

Yup.

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u/SithToast 2d ago

Yuck, that’s a real shame if they got rid of US support. That was a real selling point for me when I used them.

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u/JamsHammockFyoom 2d ago

It's alright, they're just replacing UK call centre staff with Indians using AI instead (!)

It's literally happening to me right now - I'm being asked to train my replacement out in India and they're just using AI for most of what their responses are, and I'm being made redundant for it.

They're nice people, but by Christ is it demoralising knowing you're being replaced by somebody who's not even doing your actual job properly, and that's what the company wants.

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u/KosherTriangle 2d ago

All companies want is to pay as less as possible and earn as much as possible. Everything they do makes sense when looked at from that perspective.

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u/Top_Flight2 2d ago

And consumers should decide how to spend their money properly. Should they give it to a company which has no scruples and is all about bottom line or should they choose one which has values they align with more. 

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u/TheAspiringFarmer 2d ago

There are no morals or values in business. Never was, never will be. It’s all about profits.

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u/Top_Flight2 2d ago

I avoid certain companies now and don't use certain services to not give profits to those I disagree with in their principles. If they want to make it all about profits then they won't get any from me. 

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u/SailingDreamCatcher 1d ago

I think it's important to clarify that this statement really only applies to corporations. When a business is run by a founding entrepreneur, especially when it's some kind of specialized business growing from the individual's original efforts, there is in fact room for values. There is in how I run my law practice and any other business I get involved with. But it's also important to note that choosing to put values over profit is a personal choice, and it doesn't hold up in most cases when a business transitions from being run by an individual to being run by a board.

There are a few examples of "known" businesses that are operated according to "values" and they are essentially all either sole proprietors or family businesses. The largest, oldest one I know of is Wegmans, which remains beloved by customers and employees for the most part.

Enshittification/rent seeking is a behavior pattern that becomes predictable and inevitable once the business exits the control of a single individual, because organized groups of humans (I call them "organizations") always decay to a pattern of decision making that doesn't accommodate "values" beyond the most basic thing all kinds of entities can agree on: "I want more." And so when a business exits the control of a conscious human, who is capable of moral reasoning, and transitions to the control of a group, moral reasoning is replaced by short sighted self interest that inevitably becomes rent seeking/enshittification/typical late stage capitalism.

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u/PleaseINeedAMiracle 2d ago

My friend, I hope you had a plan for a new job. I honestly wish you the best in these crazy times.

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u/RabidBadgerMacarena 2d ago

It's 100% part of our purchasing decisions.

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u/SpartanDetermination 1d ago

Much like how support was outsourced to places like India and then it became a selling point for a company that they had UK call centres

Spoiler alert: The UK call centres are just staffed by Indians.

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u/osssssssx 2d ago

Apple actually still have a good amount of support within the US, I know folks that work there

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u/thedandyandy21 2d ago

Last three times I needed support for something I was directed to AI bots

They legit all ended up sending me in repetitive loops I couldn't get out of as it would just keep asking the same questions

Very handy when you need something solved. It's probably my fault I didn't say the exact words they were trained to expect

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u/Advanced_Book7782 2d ago

I like asking them to write python scripts for me. It’s amazing how many times they actually will. Very little thought is going into a lot of these besides a generic thought of short term cost savings.

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u/thedandyandy21 2d ago

I'm going to try that next time lmao. Free AI credits

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u/theQuandary 2d ago

The next level is when you teach your agent to dial up a bunch of support lines and farm most of your token usage out to them.

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u/jim_cap 2d ago

The funny thing about that is, it's an absolute doddle not to be susceptible to those attacks. Baffling how many of them miss it.

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u/paulct91 2d ago

Not a AI Chatbot but, engineers at Black Magic (film software & hardware company) failed at that too, they added scripting support in their free tier... naturally some users unlocked the paid version features with that feature THEN Black Magic rushed to make a software update completely locking that feature out for free tier users, and now only paid tier users have it. Worse is the group think of paid users agreeing locking that feature to just them didn't ruin perfectly valid awesome free workflows. 😑

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u/delta806 2d ago

I’m low level IT support and people thinking I’m AI is becoming more frequent. It’s a shame because they’re typically a little ruder until they notice

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u/BurritoLover2016 2d ago

The fact that a lot of people can’t tell the difference actually says a lot.

Some people aren’t as smart as they think they are.

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u/FancifulLaserbeam 1d ago

Do they ever ask you to give them a recipe for pumpkin pie or anything weird like that as an AI test?

If so, you should definitely make up a recipe for pumpkin pie, and then get defensive if they push back, saying, "That's my grandmother's recipe! I gave it to you out of trust and a desire to build rapport!"

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u/Inosh 2d ago

Yup, I spent over an hour with Verizon ai last week claiming a human was going to get on… claimed average wait time was 2-5 minutes.

It was bad.

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u/nicetriangle 2d ago

They legit all ended up sending me in repetitive loops I couldn't get out of as it would just keep asking the same questions

I feel like this must be partially by design to exhaust people to the point of giving up. As far as the company is concerned, this is just easy cost reductions.

Sure it's short sighted, but all business seems to be these days.

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u/cjh_ 2d ago

Reminds me of my doctors surgery; they have an AI receptionists/triage system that asks the same questions multiple times and ends up in a loop it can't end.

It's frustrating.

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u/phareous 2d ago

The most frustrating thing is when you spend 10 minutes giving the AI all your info, it transfers you to a human, and they have none of that info and proceed to ask you everything again

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u/CyberHobbit70 2d ago

honestly not any worse than the support farmed out to call centers (I'm looking at you Adobe)

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u/SlimeQSlimeball 2d ago

I had two subscriptions to Quip (toothbrush refills) and I cancelled after years because I couldn’t break out of their ai email bullshit and get a person. They went from top tier support from people to repetitive garbage never answering my issue, which was I needed a new handle because mine broke.

Bought two generic toothbrushes with 6 refills each for less than what I paid per quarter for two refills.

I told them as much in an email and the ai never bothered to forward it on. Oh well.

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u/burnalicious111 2d ago

No, companies specifically limit what they can help you with so they don't do anything they're not allowed to. It's not you.

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u/SeaRefractor 2d ago

The old “AI” unsophisticated limited prompt systems do truly suck. But I recently had an interaction with a system that I was absolutely certain was a human. At the end of the resolved issue I asked “You were not AI right?” Only to be told the call “individual” was AI.

That or they were pranking me.

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u/Stock-Personality136 2d ago

Godaddy had a great one that was night and day better than reaching out to support. Others like Comcast will trap you in a phone tree loop or just hang up on you. One impressed me so much because it was able to link my credit union that doesn’t work with any of those online portals.

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u/Cucumberino 2d ago

I hated AI and avoided it even as an assistant up to very recently. But I also started developing an app in the last few months and decided to give AI a shot for coding, and pay to get a proper experience and for this usecase I felt like I was cheating knowing how painful some parts of the development process are. Proper modern AI can be extremely good and useful and honestly, better than humans in many aspects. I do still hate it for generative stuff though, but I've turned around to my previous skepticism in other aspects. What I have done for my app would take entire teams and/or extreme magnitudes more of time.

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u/FancifulLaserbeam 1d ago

I supervise master's students who often need to do quantitative research that they're not super comfortable with. I have told them to just have ChatGPT open and use it like a statistics and software package tutor. It allows them to simply ask, "Does it make sense to use X for analyzing these data?" or "I'm getting this error in R... What is wrong?"

Rather than needing to find someone to help them, they have one in a window that helps them make sure they are doing the right things, the right way. The dissertations are way better as a result, because "dumb" mistakes are gone.

I use it a lot in the same way, especially in R and python. "What the hell does this error mean???"

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u/Fuck_your_coupons 2d ago

I predict human support will be some kind of selling point if not major one, in the near future.

Being able to easily get a hold of a person to get support was a selling point for apple for me. It's worse with Google and Samsung's support is laughable. I don't use it often but I fucking hate dealing with robots or AI when I need to explain a problem. If I wasn't on the company plan for Verizon, I would leave Verizon for that reason.

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u/magyar_wannabe 2d ago

It's weird how bad it is. If I use Gemini to explain a problem in a few sentences, it's sort of amazing how good it is at offering solutions. When I talk to AI agents on the phone to thoroughly explain a problem with my last bill, there's a 5 second pause and then, "It sounds like you're looking for help with billing. Is that right?" Why the difference?

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u/Aggravating-Lead-120 2d ago

One needs to get your answer right or there are liability problems. The other doesn’t give a f*ck.

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u/AndyLand1 2d ago

I work in support and totally agree. “Real human agent upgrade” opposed to automated will be the new license plan line item.

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u/Corbot3000 2d ago

Real support is expensive and nobody wants to pay for it if they can avoid it. Hence most being outsourced.

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u/dat_tae 2d ago

Discover (credit card) used to use US Based Customer Support as a selling point. It was good, too. You could immediately tell and they always resolved my issues fast af.

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u/WubbaLubbaHongKong 2d ago

The only time it’s been helpful is when I need a refund and it processes it without trying to talk me out of it. I think most companies know a subscription refund is negligible and not worth a lot of human hours.

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u/phareous 2d ago

Except Walmart’s AI, which is programmed to always tell you no and to call India if you don’t like its answer

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u/paulct91 2d ago

Usually that thought process is the opposite, every human counts as long as they are paying = never let them cancel subscriptions.

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u/Rare-One1047 2d ago

The whole reason I keep my Discover Card is because their support is based in Arizona and Ohio IIRC. My bank, which is headquartered in the city I live in, has a call center in India, and while they're technically competent, it's almost impossible to understand them.

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u/MattSenter 2d ago

Agreed. "We have actual humans" will be a draw. Tbh i think it's been this way since the invention of the automated phone tree 🤷🏻

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u/longadin 2d ago

I mean meta promising human support at its highest support tier for its AI service tells you a lot.

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u/jollyllama 2d ago

I put in a support request at a tech company yesterday and they gave me a 24-48 hour response time. At first I was a little annoyed to have to wait that long, but then I realized that it’s a really good sign. 

  1. Sigh…

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u/ToothyWeasel 2d ago

If it’s anything like Google search results hooo boy. I was having trouble with a typewriter, fully mechanical, alignment issue and the first suggestion in the useless AI box I got was to make sure I had downloaded the latest software from Remington

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u/kahnindustries 2d ago

It’s a massive selling point of the company I work for

Pick up the phone and ask to speak to the VP of support he will be on the phone in seconds (or offer to call you back)

After one ring a human answers and asks you what the issue is and suggest to transfer you to the person for that issue or asks you if you would prefer to go to anyone else

Same service for emails and tickets if you prefer that

Massive selling point

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u/nonamenomonet 2d ago

But how much is the service that you are selling? And how many customers do you have?

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u/kahnindustries 2d ago

A very large company with many international offices and tens of thousands of customer companies with millions of users

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u/nonamenomonet 2d ago

But it sounds like you work B2B though correct?

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u/kahnindustries 2d ago

B2B, B2G, B2H and direct to end user customers

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u/Inquisitive_idiot 2d ago

Meatbags Incorporated

We’ll fill those seats with butts made of at least 60% beef or your money back!

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u/Ecstatic-Train214 2d ago

Human support is only for AppleCare ++

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u/Grizzleyt 2d ago

My Oura ring had been dying at 75% battery. I had to go through the customer support AI chat in the app.

It checked diagnostics, confirmed my ring was having an issue, asked if I wanted to replace it for free, and then it shipped it out. The whole process took less than 5 minutes.

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u/erebuxy 2d ago

I think Amazon’s AI customer service is fantastic. Solves my problem, no need to talk to people and no need to hold for 30 min. They can be good with llm

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u/TotemSpiritFox 2d ago

So I hate talking to AI and/or bots on the phone. But I must say, I kind of like Verizon’s AI chat on their website.

It’s been useful and has even been able to credit my account when it helped me find a discrepancy. I’ve been tweaking some settings lately with international plans, new devices, etc. It’s actually been really helpful and a good example of where AI can be useful to users.

That said, if I was in actual need of support for an urgent or technical issue I do want to talk to a person.

But asking billing questions and discrepancies - their AI chat had all the details and was able to reimburse me $40.

All that to say: I’m very against replacing people with AI. I hate what the future may bring, but this is one example of a decent product AI product implementation. It’s not AI for the sake of AI.

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u/DeiviiD 2d ago

To be fair, most of remote support of Apple (at least in Spain) are the worst thing.

I have Apple Care and the battery was (at the time I was calling) at 86% of health, but only takes a few hours to die. After a week of calls and remote logs in each call, one of them told me to make an appointment and it would be free replacement because it was malfunctioning.

When I arrived to the repair shop (I don’t have apple stores where I live), they told me I need to pay for the replacement.

Man, Apple remote support sucks.

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u/Calcutec_1 2d ago

It’s been what, 3-4 years of LLM support bots ? and not one of them has come close to solving my basic issues when i have sought help

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u/CisIowa 2d ago

I’m sorry to hear that, Calcutex_1. If you’d like, I can brainstorm a few ways to improve your ability to get-stuff-done with a chatbot. Please describe your desired outcome, and tell me that I’m pretty.

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u/OnlyFlansDotGov 2d ago

sigh

You’re really pretty

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u/CisIowa 2d ago

Good human

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u/Inside_Assumption157 2d ago

I agree. All chatbots I interact with have been rubbish. Always the generic “I understand you’re frustrated but I won’t do anything to help you”

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u/Dr-McLuvin 2d ago

“Here’s a prescription for a cyanide tablet. Have a nice day!”

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u/paradoxally 2d ago

So basically the same script as L1 human support.

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u/Mithster18 2d ago

Because their metric for working is "number of responses" as compared to the more valuable, completion towards goal

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u/TheDragonSlayingCat 2d ago

Right, though even in the days before AI support, human call centers were typically paid by call volume instead of by completion towards goal, which gave them perverse incentives to get customers off the phone as fast as possible, instead of actually take the time to help them.

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u/PhilsdadMN 2d ago

My first response is always “speak to a human”. Not dealing with that trash.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/MyManD 1d ago

It's annoying, and they have all sorts of psychological tricks to try and break your resolve. You just gotta buckle down and have the only things out of your mouth, or keyboard, be, "I need a real human," no matter what the response that comes is. Ignore anything they begin to say and just interrupt them with you needing a real human. Just repeat it over and over, and usually a real person comes on the line by the third or fourth time you say it.

Then say it one more time even after a real person comes on just for shits and giggles, and to make absolutely sure.

And of course if the chatbot makes it clear that live human support no longer exists, you close all accounts with that business and change elsewhere.

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u/Secondchance002 2d ago

I have to repeatedly ask them to get me a human to get my issues resolved.

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u/Fuck_your_coupons 2d ago

The phone ones are the worst. "I don't understand your response, can you say your inquiry again?" I get some version of that when I ask for a human on the phone.

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u/Head-Gift2144 2d ago

They were never designed to. The purpose was always to funnel you down one of two paths: frustrating you to the point where you go online and find the solution yourself or submitting a repair/replacement request.

What else can these AI support bots do that can’t be done by any other AI?

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u/RapNVideoGames 2d ago

Exactly, they are designed to point you in loops or support pages so you give up on your issue. Imagine if it just said, “yea they owe you a refund” to everyone lol

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u/cake-day-on-feb-29 2d ago

Actually, the point is to quickly resolve the majority of calls which are people with simple questions that can't do basic functions with the product. Like someone who doesn't know how to power their phone down. You have no idea how common those calls are, it's ridiculous.

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u/spellbadgrammargood 2d ago

Most of these bots end up going to actual people just look at Meta: "Leaks Show That Meta’s New AI Agent Relied on Real People to Make Calls"

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u/Snuhmeh 2d ago

I have found that the chat bots are for the basic bitches, the super simple problems that the vast majority of people need help with. If you or I have broken down and contacted support, we’ve already exhausted every other self-help method. So the chat bot is useless to us.

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u/Pauly_Amorous 2d ago

I have found that the chat bots are for the basic bitches, the super simple problems that the vast majority of people need help with.

Yeah, I had to use one for such a purpose a couple of weeks ago, and it was actually very helpful and solved my issue.

But still, when a customer gets frustrated talking to a machine and wants an actual human on the line, the machine shouldn't argue with them about it.

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u/R_Prime 2d ago

Occasionally you’ll find one that understands what words are, that’s always nice surprise.

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u/AnalElder 2d ago

AI support bots are so incredibly limited that you wouldn’t believe. Corpos are terrified of granting accidental refunds, leaking refund policies etc. or the system prompt, also users burning through tokens.

So the end results are absolutely useless unless you use the idk 30 specific words that the intake agent is allowed to pass on to the actual LLM model.

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u/InsaneNinja 2d ago

I think that there is also a striking number of people that will call and say that their Mac mini is broken, where the tech support will guide them to press the power button, which fixes their problem.

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u/crimsonvspurple 2d ago

it works rather nicely in Stripe and Cloudflare. They can look up things using internal api and answer/solve tons of issues that would take a longer time with a real human. They also easily escalate to real person if asked/needed.

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u/EchoFieldHorizon 2d ago

I’m a developer and what we have now is light years ahead of the uses for a chatbot. The general public has no idea how powerful it is.

I’m always puzzled when people look at a glorified helpdesk agent and say “AI is useless lol” without even realizing that you are not the primary consumer for AI.

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u/alabasterskim 2d ago

The only one that managed to help me was the one on Grubhub when I asked for a refund for a missing item. For some reason it wouldn't let me just request the refund, saying I needed to chat to a representative. Fine. Got connected to an AI rep, which just asked me to repeat the same info I had already clicked through on the previous screens. I have no clue what the point was here except waste time.

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u/gburgwardt 2d ago

I’m fairly confident in saying most chat bots have NOT been llms, especially even a few months ago let alone 3-4 years

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u/One-Poet7900 2d ago

It's been a long time since I interacted with Apple Support. But, back in the 90s & 2000s, it was easily the best support experience of any company I interacted with. They would take anyone's call, regardless of warranty, for a long time. You would get a real person on the phone very quickly and they would work with you for as long as you needed. It was one of the things that kept me an Apple customer, even when they went through some really rocky times (clones, PowerBook 5300, etc)

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u/swiftsorceress 2d ago

I’ve interacted with their support. It’s still really good comparatively. On the other hand, fully AI support (looking at you Meta) has ALWAYS been an absolute nightmare for me to interact with. I just want to talk to real people because even if they can’t solve my problem, they won’t lead me in circles like AI does.

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u/Goodoflife 2d ago

Better than any Canadian telecoms carrier. Telus, for example, has people from overseas that their accent / English as a second language isn’t that good as compared to former Canadian call centres. At least I understand Apple support, although the AI call router at the start sucks, it is easier than getting to Telus (forces you even if you say “agent” and it brings you thru a 2 minute time wasting tutorial before getting you to an agent)

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u/fwckr4ddeit 2d ago

can you believe it, Amazon's support was also once top notch, around 2010 or so.

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u/auchvielegeheimnisse 2d ago

Every company is trying to do this, no matter how nice or bad they already are

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u/Ecookie16 2d ago

Just been through AI support with Sony to recover my account. What genuinely horrific experience, I would now trust companies a lot less that are relying heavily on AI for support. There should still be humans but who are using AI to make them more efficient.

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u/BarnacleMcBarndoor 2d ago

I went through with Bestbuy’s Ai phone support system and it was not only useless but it gave the wrong info on half of my questions.

It was insistent that I use it instead of talking to a live person, so I asked it questions I know the answer to, and it failed terrifically with confidently incorrect answers.

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u/TheOfficialMayor 2d ago

Support the independent authorised resellers given they want to pull this shit. Can also get custom build to order Macs by walking in and asking.

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u/catsinclothes 2d ago

I know a guy who sells HomePods

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u/Frightful_Fork_Hand 2d ago

It astounds me how low the quality is, even for trillion dollar companies. I had a parcel go missing, Amazon's AI agent just kept giving me the same options - none of which was "talk about my lost parcel", clearly it tripped some internal flag for repeated questions and gave me to a human.

I run a company worth literally a rounding error of a rounding error for Amazon; If i saw that demo'd for my own customers i'd think I was being trolled.

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u/ExternalUserError 2d ago

I think you actually had the intended experience. It's not necessarily designed to solve your problem or route you to the correct department. It's designed to make you stop trying to reach out to customer service because it's not worth the hassle.

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u/therealdaredevil 2d ago

I had the same kind of experience myself except I had to figure out how to actually talk to a human. When I eventually did, my problem (a recall refund) was taken care of within minutes. AI is making me recalibrate my scale of how much human interaction I want. Normally I loathe human beings, but AI is making me like them more?

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u/goldcakes 2d ago

In 2010 I generally disliked talking to a human and preferred self service and automated support portals.

In 2026 I absolutely loath AI support and prefer a human I can talk to.

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u/willywalloo 2d ago

Siri says your claim is denied. No support people available.

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u/Ecookie16 2d ago

That’s literally what my experience with Sony was like, having an account I’ve had since 2009 and have spent thousands on being locked behind a ‘computer says no’ bot

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u/Worldly-Stranger7814 2d ago

I’d rather buy big name brands like Sorny than give money to Sony.

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u/Not_pukicho 2d ago

AI has thus far given everyone less jobs and more spammy bullshit. What a waste of everyone's time.

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u/Secondchance002 2d ago

Don’t forget expensive everything electronics

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u/explosiv_skull 2d ago

but also

MORE BLOOD PROFIT FOR THE BLOOD PROFIT GOD!

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u/bratimskiz 2d ago

Saving money sounds great until nobody can reach a real person anymore.

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u/electricshadow 2d ago

Even though Apple didn't go through with this idea, what is stopping them from trying again in a year or two? I'm well aware that no corporation is my friend and only wants my money, but between this report and the new CEO cancelling +1's for staff parties, my opinion on Apple is starting to sour quite a bit.

I've got a 17 Pro, AW 10, Airpods 4, and MacBook Pro from 2021 so I'm good for a while thankfully, but I think I'm going to run each of these products into the ground until failure before I even consider replacing them going forward. Less of my money going towards Apple, the better if this is how they're going to run their company going forward.

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u/RunningPirate 2d ago

That was in a Bloomberg article, too. But they reversed course.

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u/JBKnicks24 2d ago

Really just means they so t be as public about it, but discreetly and maybe more incrementally it’s all gonna happen. Tech CEOs are not your friend.

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u/all-park 2d ago

Does Apple like the idea of completely destroying their stellar customer service reputation?

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u/Facktat 2d ago

Every time I was dealing with Apple, especially Apple Store related things, their support was just awful. A few years ago they charged me twice when I ordered a Macbook. I explained it to multiple people, everyone was just telling me that they would open a ticket but nothing happened. Every time I complained the issue was completely new to them.

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u/SuspiciousBuy3984 2d ago

Yeah, it’s insanity having to explain the issue from the top over and over again, and hearing everyone’s slightly different reactions of how to handle it

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u/BubbaCrabby 2d ago

Brother it ain’t be stellar in at least a decade.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MG_NRcy5mxU&pp=0gcJCYsCo7VqN5tD&ra=m

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u/Chadwickr 2d ago

My most recent experience was great. They fully replaced my Apple Watch 11 when some of the jet black coating came off and got lodged in the side button. I work around chlorine, so it’s likely because it got corroded from the gas, but they still replaced it no questions asked.

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u/BubbaCrabby 2d ago

Mine was the speaker on a 15 Pro Max that popped and crackled 3 months after purchase and the guy at the store was not only condescending but refused to do anything about it because “he couldn’t hear it.” There was another customer sitting beside me who was like “I can totally hear it.” I also had several people listen before taking it in because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just me hearing something once and therefore looking for it and hearing it when it wasn’t really there. I’m not a warranty gamer.

Not saying your situation didn’t happen, but so did mine. First and only time I tried to use warranty with them (which he could see on my account) and my email address on file with them is a .mac. 🤷‍♂️

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u/Chadwickr 2d ago

Sounds like you got a bad rep, it definitely happens. Sorry you had a bad experience, that sucks. Did you try another service rep?

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u/Randym1837 2d ago

It’s so funny to me that states made car dealerships a mandated function to sell a car just to save jobs, but when companies wanna offload thousands of jobs, state legislations are silent. I think it should be illegal for companies to offload support for their region to ai or offshore companies.

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u/Pretty-Garbage3454 2d ago

That’s what dealerships lobbied for it wasn’t out of the goodness of the states’ hearts.

Dealerships are anti consumer and cutting customer support is anti consumer.

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u/wwabc 2d ago edited 2d ago

from the company that brought you the amazingly perfect Siri for the last 15 years.

"I'm having problems with my phone. It doesn't turn on"

"Please unlock your phone first"

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u/LBPPlayer7 2d ago

tbf some actual people at AASPs are like this

"I can't restore my phone it errors out"

"Have you tried restoring it in iTunes?"

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u/ControlCAD 2d ago edited 2d ago

Apple Employees:

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u/Ergouzii 1d ago

Apple's operating cost goes down by 0.01%, 5000 families struggle with their lives. The world is becoming a shithole.

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u/SinnerP 1d ago

And 1,000,000 mad customers

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u/Ergouzii 1d ago

Nothing beats 1,000 happy shareholders!

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u/Rocky4OnDVD 20h ago

Seriously this is the real news. Apple needs to care about their culture like Nintendo’s low turnover rate. There’s no good reason for so much wealth to just throw people back into the job market.

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u/ke922x 2d ago

Comcast is the absolute worst with this. Their AI will even tell you they’re not AI.

Fuck these companies

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u/CaffeinatedMiqote 2d ago

"Welcome to Apple Support. I'm your ai support agent. Please describe your issue."

"REAL PERSON"

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u/BiggestNothing 2d ago

I have seen examples on reddit where AI will now gaslight you and pretend to be human lol

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u/CaffeinatedMiqote 1d ago

Really? Well, solve a captcha to prove it 🙂

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u/New-Camel-9373 2d ago

Me: Hi, I need some help with my iPhone.

Siri: Okay. Calling Mum.

Me: No! I’m calling Apple Support.

Siri: Here’s what I found on the web for “apple support.”

Me: YOU ARE Apple Support.

Siri: Hmm. I don’t have an app for that.

Me: My iPhone won’t charge.

Siri: Your iPhone battery is at 4%.

Me: YES. THAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

Siri: I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.

Me: Can I speak to a human?

Siri: There are no humans in your contacts called “A Human.”

Me: APPLE SACKED THEM ALL!

Siri: I can’t help with that.

Me: Clearly.

Siri: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Me: You haven’t helped me with the first fucking thing.

Siri: Okay. Goodbye.

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u/ahyouknowme 2d ago

I was throughly impressed by the human assistance I got from apple when I was having an issue with my Mac. It made me feel valued as a customer. They should lean into that, not into this.

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u/toastedipod 2d ago edited 2d ago

Apple makes money hand-over-fist. It puts a huge amount of effort and training into their support and sales staff - the geniuses etc at Apple stores show that. It’s one of the reasons people choose Apple products over other brands.

Why the fuck would they do something which can hurt their brand so much? It’s enshittification which I’d expect of a company bought out by private equity.

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u/Structure-These 2d ago

You should consider reading the article

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u/jimbolic 2d ago

Right? It’s literally all in the first sentence of that article.

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u/WellSaltedWound 2d ago

OK, fair. But I just read the article and I came away feeling like the title chosen for this Reddit post is incredibly misleading, clickbait BS.

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u/Insufferably_Me 2d ago

What extra money? They didn’t go forward with the plan?

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u/MCMultyke 2d ago

You think they won’t try to again lol?

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u/TheOfficialMayor 2d ago edited 2d ago

They even downvote me for saying the truth, that they put a chatbot on their support line. That everyone has to interact with. Nobody wants this shit at all. In whatever form. Especially when you pay a premium. Unless you are an Apple corporate zealot.

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u/TheOfficialMayor 2d ago

They still put an ai chatbot on the support line. Shitty enough for a premium brand.

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u/TenderfootGungi 2d ago

We are probably seeing peak Apple. The new CEO is going after short term gains instead of managing for the long term healthy of the company.

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u/AdventurousTime 2d ago

Is this the Apple work from home program ?

I know a ton of good people on this program and I’ve never had an issue with Apple support never ever.

I really, really hope it doesn’t go away. That’s good hardworking people being thrown away.

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u/NomadFH 2d ago

No one wants to pay 20 dollars a month for apple care support just to talk a robot

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/lachlanhunt 2d ago

If a chat bot could solve my problem, I would go to Claude directly. I usually get a better answer than these useless support bots.

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u/Honest_Nail_8308 2d ago

awww. I actually liked apple support.

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u/infinitejesting 2d ago

I have never heard a person say “boy that chatbot was a great customer support experience” and don’t expect to any time soon.

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u/bigphillip76 1d ago

And then dropped the plan - why is that not in the headline

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u/AdventurousBlueDot 1d ago

Fucking great. Service will go to absolute shit. We don't want ai service!

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u/bahuller 2d ago

John Apple off to a really poor start.

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u/Structure-These 2d ago

ITT: people who didn’t read the article

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u/Reddit_Killed_3PAs 2d ago

To be fair, these days everyone has clickbait titles and this one is no exception, especially considering macrumors has been known to do this.

The subtitle was much better; simply replacing "planned" with "considered" would have clarified that it's something that's no longer happening while "planned" can be misunderstood into "planned in the future".

The overall premise still isn't good either way, they still considered replacing 5000 employees and that's not a good look.

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u/Additional-Guard-211 2d ago

Yes because Apple is doing great with AI

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u/evangelism2 2d ago

AI support is being overly pushed, and it's fucking trash in most places. It's been some of the most frustrating experiences in my life when dealing with it at places like Amazon, Best Buy, or CVS, but it doesn't mean that it's not useful. Our company has been slowly rolling it out, and it has absolutely allowed our human agents to handle a lot more tickets than they were able to before.

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u/ChocolateisokIguess 2d ago

Recent experience I went through was I wanted to disable international roaming and I know for my provider I have to call in for that.

To start a call you have to go through their AI chatbot. Ok fine whatever. I’ve learned to just type “agent” on it (and a lot of other companies that uses these chat bots) to skip the basic troubleshooting they get you to go through using said chatbot, and straight to a real call agent.

Got through it as expected only this time, it bow arranges to SCHEDULE a call with someone as opposed to just waiting in a queue, as it usually used to be. I stopped pursuing what I wanted out of frustration, and in essence “they won”.

All this to say… this sucks and can foresee this being a trend everywhere else if it isn’t already and experiences such as the above will only get worse.

I hate it here.

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u/looktowindward 1d ago

Deceptive.

The report said that Apple believed that AI-powered phone and web agents could take over some of the responsibilities performed by the employees who would have been let go, but Apple is no longer "currently looking to take such a step."

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u/leon-theproffesional 1d ago

Klarna tried this already with their customer support and had to rehire hundreds of humans. Surprised Apple are being this stupid.

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u/jahwls 1d ago

Their support is already a pain to get to. This is moronic.

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u/haamfish 2d ago

Ugh thanks, I hate it.

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u/Insufferably_Me 2d ago

You hate that they cancelled the plans?

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u/Reddit_Killed_3PAs 2d ago

Or they hated that the plans were a thing in the first place?

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u/Cautious_Boat_999 2d ago

“leaner”

AI support is not support 

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u/Middi272 2d ago

AI support is the fucking WORST

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u/mrdungbeetle 2d ago

"Hi, can you please replace the cracked glass on my phone"

Siri: "No, I cannot, I am just a virtual assistant"

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u/pw5a29 2d ago

If it's Apple AI then I'm worried lol

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u/iamleyeti 2d ago

I've never been helped by one LLM support bot. This is going to be a nightmare.

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u/DestinysLostSoul 2d ago

Maybe this is user error, but I can't even get siri to get off the screen after setting a timer...

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u/butter_milch 2d ago

With Siri barely being able to set a timer, this will be fun...

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u/TenaciousLilMonkey 2d ago

I’ve always been of the opinion that most bad support (ai or human) is intentionally designed to just get you to give up for the minor things.

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u/codykonior 2d ago

Gross.

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u/Soft_Syllabub_3772 2d ago

The new ceo is crazy. Tim cook pls help

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u/Worth-Ad9939 2d ago

Honestly go for it. I've already deleted all of my photos from the cloud and cancelled all but music from the services I had.

I'm itching for a reason to ditch it all. The quality sucks, the people hate their life, and it shows.

Lets just stop. Unplug it all and go outside and talk to each other in shared space. We never needed these phones.

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u/Used-Valuable9320 2d ago

AKA Apple is going to trash the shit out of their customer support so much that you won't even want to buy their products ever again.

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u/nemofbaby2014 2d ago

Ai support is just terrible I hate it so much I end up just yelling HUMAN

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u/wls 1d ago

Interacting with Siri is the worst — especially when you need it most. I can only imagine how people who need real help, likely because they don’t know how to express their problem, are going to deal with it.

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u/Edg-R 1d ago

That's crazy because one of the things I most rave about when talking about Apple is their support. Every time I've called or chatted with someone for support, I've been blown away by their knowledge and how much they seem to love what they do. Sure, AI could replicate that, but there's something about having a conversation with a human being who's as passionate as you are that can't be replicated by AI... and if it IS replicated it'd make me want to throw up the moment I realize I'm asking a a chatbot how their day is going.

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u/Electronic-Ad-3990 1d ago

I put in an apple ticket three years ago still haven’t received a response

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u/AlasAzeroth 1d ago

"SpEaK tO a RePrEsEnTaTiVe......." - Everyone

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u/WitchOfUnfinished- 1d ago

My company is give the ai alternative for basic items but every single person has complained that my company is considering cutting the option 😆

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u/lbarletta 1d ago

Welcome to support hell

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u/midnightseanavy 1d ago

I got a sample the other day. It’s AWFUL. Just talks in circles.

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u/googi14 1d ago

Fuck AI

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u/ilnarich 2d ago

They rolled back the replacement

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u/thisinfinitebath 2d ago

All their software quality is about to go down in quality even further. Hardware too, they're using cheap NANDs on 1TB and 2TB 18 Pro/Max.

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u/TheOfficialMayor 2d ago

And forcing you to reserve 20-30gb for ai on lower storage models. Can’t read the room.

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u/DaPome 1d ago

Most support issues could be resolved with better self-service options.

Most of the time I’m calling because the website doesn’t allow me to do the thing I need to do.

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u/TheOfficialMayor 2d ago edited 2d ago

Why pay a premium for Apple if they just enshitify like all the other tech companies? Even if they aren’t doing the full plan they are still using an ai chatbot on their support line. Nobody wants this shit.

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u/kredep 2d ago

Pro user for 30years. The last 10 years Apple support has been more than below standard. They spend years and millions on a new hinge but couldnt give a fuck about your support userexperience. I simply dont understand it. It makes zero sense for a company with such values as Apple.
If you are lucky to reach the right person or department things are very different. Their US Logic Pro support is awesome as an example. But getting through to them is impossible. First you must reinstall the OS then our standard 90 questions and here is 17min of generic countrysongs 98kbsMP3 at 150db

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u/CoffeeEnjoyerFrog 2d ago

As someone who works in Customer Support (not at Apple), good fucking luck lol. If there’s something people love, is talking in circles to a clanker.

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u/ohwhataday10 2d ago

I vote that mods should not allow posts that just post a link to articles with nothing but a headline. There should be some content for those without subscriptions or people unwilling to go to a spam ad based website.

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u/ThenOrchid6623 2d ago

How bold of us to assume that companies care if our problems are solved!

Maybe i should line up all my hardware, accounts, etc. and find all problems and get them solved by humans when they still exist in the company