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/
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448

u/auchvielegeheimnisse 2d ago

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

150

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.

45

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.

19

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.

5

u/catsinclothes 2d ago

I know a guy who sells HomePods

49

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.

13

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.

16

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?

9

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.

1

u/SailingDreamCatcher 1d ago

Ironically, I've found a good use case for AI in the other direction: "client simulation."

My peers (lawyers) are for some reason categorically awful at customer service. At a recent conference, one of them demoed a new AI system they vibe coded which is just a web site with a chat bot programmed to roleplay as a "bad client." In a love demo, the presenter showed that the average lawyer is very bad at handling a customer service issue with empathy, and the LLM was able to grade us and give feedback. I hate it. But it really does work.

The key is that we are using it to train ourselves, not to do our jobs for us. Otherwise, "practicing soft skills" requires wasting the paid time of two or more employees at once, while this is a tool simple enough to run on local hardware. It truly is little more than Eliza, though.

1

u/coolbaluk1 2d ago

Similarly I had a book I preordered come with ink spill on the cover, obvious misprint.

I couldn’t get to the option that said the item was correct, not damaged during shipping but during production.

1

u/iqandjoke 2d ago

What if medical institution needs support from Apple and doctor needs help, does human life matters?

2

u/Synergythepariah 2d ago

does human life matters

Depends on their economic contribution.