From Adweek · Trishla Ostwal · · 2m
AI agents need humans in the loop
Companies like AT&T and Crocs are deploying AI agents, but they're keeping humans in control where it matters most.
In brief
Companies like AT&T and Crocs are deploying AI agents, but they're keeping humans in control where it matters most. AI automation works best when it handles routine tasks while humans stay involved in decisions that need empathy, judgment, or understanding customer intent. Originally reported by Adweek.
Salesforce's big AI bet
Marc Benioff wants AI agents to replace human work, but only 30,000 of Salesforce's 150,000 customers use Agentforce, the company's agent feature launched in 2024.
The safety debate heats up
At Dreamforce, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, and Nvidia's Jensen Huang debated whether AI development needs to slow down for safety research to catch up.
Microsoft challenges Anthropic
Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman criticized Anthropic's approach to training Claude on consciousness questions, arguing it could make AI systems harder for humans to control.
Amodei calls for caution
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a 3,800-word essay arguing AI is advancing too fast for safety research, and called for independent evaluators to verify companies follow safety commitments.
Huang takes the opposite view
Nvidia's Jensen Huang argued AI safety is an engineering problem, not a legal one, and said companies should self-regulate rather than face new laws.
Trump rejects AI slowdown
President Donald Trump dismissed calls for slowing AI development, citing concerns about losing the race to China and arguing only a strong president can provide guardrails.
Consumers fear full automation
A survey of 2,606 consumers found 65% are comfortable with AI recommendations, but only 15% trust it with transactions and just 7.5% accept fully autonomous decisions.
AT&T speeds up phone upgrades
AT&T uses AI agents to cut phone upgrade time from 30 minutes to 10 minutes, but deliberately keeps humans in charge of cancellations to understand why customers are leaving.
“AI can make us much more efficient. But we really want to make sure that's still that human interaction.”
Southwest reserves empathy for humans
Southwest Airlines uses AI agents for routine tasks like flight changes but keeps human employees for what it calls right-here-right-now problems requiring empathy and assurance.
Crocs builds with guardrails
Crocs deployed AI agents for customer chat and internal tasks like product categorization, but maintains human oversight as it learns what automation can and cannot handle.
Data quality matters most
Crocs SVP Feliz Papich said the real challenge isn't building fancy AI interfaces, it's ensuring the underlying data is good enough to deliver what customers expect.
“Data is such an important conversation, respective to AI. Sometimes that gets lost because you're talking about the interface.”
The essence
AI automation works best when it handles routine tasks while humans stay involved in decisions that need empathy, judgment, or understanding customer intent.
