Customers prefer ChatGPT over company chatbots despite billions in AI spending, Gartner finds

Customers prefer ChatGPT to company chatbots, Gartner finds

Companies poured money into customer-service chatbots. Their customers went and used ChatGPT instead, and a new Gartner survey finds people are three times more likely to reach for a third-party AI tool than the bot on a company's own site. Businesses spent big on AI to answer their customers. The customers had other ideas. People are approximately three times more likely to use a third-party GenAI tool, such as ChatGPT, than a company's own chatbot to sort out a service problem, according to Gartner, Inc. The firm, a research and advisory company, surveyed 3,566 customers in February and March. Use of outside GenAI tools during service interactions has nearly doubled in a year. Use of company chatbots has barely moved since 2022. Consumers, meanwhile, have embraced these tools, and half the US public now uses AI chatbots. Money in, little out The spending tells the other half of the story. A separate Gartner survey of 1,303 senior leaders found customer-service teams put a median 12 per cent of their 2025 budget into AI, more than any other business function. Only 24 per cent saw a positive financial return. "The disappointing impact of customer-facing GenAI investments has less to do with technology limitations and more to do with misalignment with customer expectations," said Eric Keller, a senior director analyst at Gartner. He argued firms should build AI-enabled service journeys across digital and voice, not standalone bots. Customers want action, not answers The behaviour has shifted in a second way. People no longer just want an AI to answer a question. They want it to do the task. Among GenAI users, 58 per cent said they had used it to act on their behalf. In business-to-business settings that rose to 74 per cent. Booking an appointment, submitting a document, updating an account: customers expect the bot to finish the job. Most company chatbots still stop at answers. That gap helps explain why people drift to tools that already act on their behalf. Why it matters Customer service has become an early test of whether enterprise AI pays. So far the money flows in faster than the returns, an adoption-versus-impact gap seen across industries. Meanwhile the AI labs circle the same work, and rivals keep buying up support-AI. Companies that treat GenAI as a bolt-on chatbot may keep losing their own customers to someone else's AI. One more thing: people still want a human on the line when the bot fails.

Gartner: Customers prefer ChatGPT over company chatbots

Customers are about 3 times more likely to use third-party generative AI tools than company-provided chatbots when trying to resolve customer service issues, according to a new Gartner survey. The survey, conducted in February and March 2026, included 3,566 B2B and B2C customers. Gartner said the findings point to 3 major changes in customer behavior: customers are choosing third-party generative AI tools over company chatbots, using AI to complete tasks rather than only find answers, and expecting access to a human agent when companies use AI in customer service. Eric Keller, senior director analyst in Gartner's Customer Service & Support Practice, said customers are adopting generative AI in both personal and work settings, but that trend has not led to higher use of customer service chatbots provided by companies. "Instead, GenAI is shifting some service interactions outside of company-owned channels," Keller said. Gartner said the use of third-party generative AI tools during service and support interactions has nearly doubled over the past year. Use of company-provided chatbots has remained statistically unchanged since 2022. The firm said this weak adoption may help explain why many customer service organizations have not yet seen financial returns from their AI investments. A separate Gartner survey of 1,303 senior leaders across multiple industries, conducted from January through April 2026, found that service and support leaders invested a median of 12 percent of their 2025 budgets in AI. Gartner said this was the highest share among the 10 business functions it assessed. Despite that spending, only 24 percent of service and support leaders showed positive financial returns across their AI use cases. Keller said the weak results from customer-facing generative AI investments are tied less to technology limits and more to a mismatch with customer expectations. "Rather than investing primarily in standalone chatbots, organizations should focus on AI-enabled service journeys that help customers resolve issues across digital and voice channels," Keller said. Gartner said customers also expect generative AI to help them take action, not just answer questions. Among customers who use generative AI, 58 percent said they had used it to complete a task on their behalf. In B2B settings, that figure rose to 74 percent. Keller said many company-provided chatbots are still mainly built to answer questions, while customers increasingly expect AI tools to help them complete actions such as booking appointments, submitting documents or updating accounts. "Service and support leaders should redesign digital support around conversational, action-oriented experiences, rather than treating GenAI as a standalone chatbot," Keller said.