Marc Benioff says artificial intelligence and humans are indistinguishable in customer service

Benioff said the company plans to expand the feature to thousands of customers before the end of the year.

Customer service has long been seen as one of the sectors where AI could have the biggest impact. Many companies have incorporated technology into customer service departments to see if it can improve the customer experience.

Earlier this year, Swedish fintech company Klarna claimed that its AI assistant was doing “the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents”. The company said the chatbot was more accurate in “resolving commissions” and on par with human agents in terms of customer satisfaction.

Some companies have claimed that AI agents provide better customer satisfaction than human workers.

Last year, the CEO of Octopus Energy, a UK home energy supplier, said that emails written by AI delivered 80% customer satisfaction, bettering the 65% achieved by skilled and trained humans.

However, the introduction of AI in other areas of customer service has not been as successful. In June, McDonald’s said it would remove its Automated Order Taker technology from more than 100 restaurants after videos showing flaws in the technology went viral the previous year.

Salesforce representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider outside of normal business hours.