Sir, this is FoH. Where nearly everyone is a top 1% developer, coder, stock trader, muscle mass haver, graduated top of their class, completely rewired their companies infrastructure by hand, redesigned their databases from scratch, and could sell a sex doll to Mother Theresa. AI isn't replacing any of our Dunning Kruger's.
You don't have to like AI agents, but pretending they're universally obvious or ineffective just isn't reality anymore. Plenty of people interact with them daily without even realizing it (especially in support pipelines where the goal isn't to "convince" you it's human, but to resolve your issue quickly). People who go in looking to "catch" or "AKTUALLY!!" AI are going to notice it, sure. Everyone else just wants their problem solved asap.
Second, this idea that you'll just "take your business elsewhere" is pure fantasy in 2026. The market isn't some wide-open bazaar of equal competitors anymore. It's a handful of massive conglomerates owning entire sectors. Whether it's telecom, retail, tech services, logistics, or even supply chains, you're often choosing between different brands owned by the same parent companies. The world is effectively controlled by a small cluster of corporate giants, so acting like consumers have infinite mobility is naive at best. You're not "voting with your wallet" nearly as much as you think. You just end up shifting between subsidiaries.
AI agents are being deployed because they scale instantly, respond faster than human reps, and handle the bulk of low-to-mid tier issues without queue times. Businesses aren't prioritizing your personal preference for human interaction because you're a boomer that needs to chat about menial bullshit with a human on the other end. They're prioritizing efficiency, cost, and consistency. If anything, your willingness to walk away is already factored into their models, and they've decided it's an acceptable loss.