AI has taken over customer service – but companies could soon regret the shift

Many companies and organizations have in recent years cut back on the number of employees dedicated to support issues, believing that AI solutions can handle this task for more efficiently.

But Gartner Research is now saying demand for support from real people is likely to increase as early as next year — because customers prefer talking with humans.

“AI is simply not mature enough to completely replace the expertise, empathy, and judgment that humans offer,” said Emily Potosky of Gartner in a statement. “Relying solely on AI at this point is premature and could lead to unintended consequences.”

Gartner expects that half of the companies that have invested in AI support will recruit human staff in the coming year, thought it might be necessary to change the titles of those who are rehired.

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Ikea’s Matter woes spotlight smart home’s biggest headache

Summary created by Smart Answers AI

In summary:

  • PCWorld highlights how Ikea’s new Matter-enabled devices like the Bilresa smart button are experiencing widespread connectivity issues, reflecting broader smart home problems.
  • These connection failures stem from complex authentication processes, device recognition challenges, and power saving modes that complicate even standardized Matter setups.
  • Ikea has acknowledged the problems and contacted the Connectivity Standards Alliance, demonstrating that connectivity issues aren’t always user error but inherent system complexity.

So there you are, with that new smart gadget you snapped up on Amazon, and you’re ready to add it to your smart home. Maybe your new device even works with Matter, the new smart home standard designed to make Alexa, Apple Home, and Google Home play nice together. What could go wrong? 

Plenty, as it turns out. “Unable to connect,” your smart home app complains, even as after you’ve painstakingly followed all the pairing steps—you know, like pressing and holding a button until an LED flashes, scanning a QR code with your phone, pinpointing an exact model number in a manufacturer’s app, and so on. 

Smart home connection hiccups are in the news right now thanks to Ikea and its new line of Matter devices, with many users complaining they’re having trouble keeping the devices online or the devices are failing to pair to their Matter smart home hubs entirely. 

Ikea has acknowledged the problem, telling The Verge that while its new Matter devices “work seamlessly” for “most customers,” they are “aware that some customers are experiencing connection issues when setting up their devices in certain home environments.” The company has reached out to the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the group behind the Matter standard, to “better understand the issues and improve the experience.” 

Ikea Bilresa Dual Button

Ikea says it’s looking into complaints about connection errors with its new Matter devices, such as the Bilresa smart button (pictured).

Ikea

While Ikea is coming under scrutiny for its recent Matter woes, it’s not the first time a smart home user has dealt with a device that flat-out refused to connect. Has it happened to me? Oh, sure—many times. 

There was the smart plug that absolutely, positively refused to stay connected. I had a terrible time getting it to pair in the first place, and then it would connect—but a day or so later, that damnable “unresponsive” tag would appear in the Apple Home app, warning me that the plug had yet again dropped the connection. I fought with that smart plug for months, until the day when—without explanation—it stopped trolling me, and it’s been working flawlessly ever since. 

I’ve also dealt with flaky smart lights, unresponsive Bluetooth speakers, stubborn security cameras, you name it. And when you go to the manufacturer for help, they always start with the same assumption: It’s your fault. 

Even Ikea’s statement—with the whole “connection issues…in certain home environments” thing—sets off faint alarm bells in my head, reminding me of all the times when the cable company blamed an internet outage on my Wi-Fi router. 

The truth is that no matter how seamless they say it is, smart home and wireless connectivity is an incredibly complex process, where devices must find and recognize each other, authenticate, and then maintain their connections over lengthy periods of time. It gets even more complicated when it comes to battery-powered devices that periodically go to sleep to conserve energy. 

So pinpointing the reason that, say, your new Ikea smart button can’t connect to your Matter hub can be frustrating bordering on impossible, and I understand the impulse to give up rather than submit to a grilling from tech support about your Wi-Fi setup, or whether there’s a microwave oven in the house.

Now, I am an Ikea fan, and I’m inclined believe the company when it says it takes the complaints about its new Matter devices “very seriously.” I also hope Ikea is open to possibility that we’re not the ones doing it wrong. 

This story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart dimmer switches and buttons.

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Microsoft aims to reward publishers for content used by AI

Microsoft thinks it has a win-win-win answer to the problem of AI chatbots delivering unreliable information: let them pay publishers for access to information that users can trust. 

Its Publisher Content Marketplace (PCM) has the triple aim of improving the quality of material provided to AI systems, providing revenue to those who provide the information, and ensuring that users of the AI services receive better responses.

“The result is a direct value exchange: publishers will be paid on delivered value, and AI builders gain scalable access to licensed premium content that improves their products,” the company said in a blog post about its plans.

If it works out then enterprises planning to use AI to help with their purchasing decisions, say, or to deliver services to their customers could be more confident about their results.

However, Zeyuan Gu, CEO of AI analytics company Adzviser, said there will still be questions over the quality of content, saying that it’s not clear how the value will be determined. “In the traditional web, value was observable. A publisher could see views, clicks, session time, and get paid through real-time bidding based on real traffic,” he said. “In an AI-first world, that signal gets very blurry. If a user asks a question and an AI gives a great answer, it’s extremely hard to know which publisher’s content influenced that answer.”

One possible issue for companies is whether Microsoft uses the same crawler for its AI content that it uses for its search function. If it does, then information providers will find it difficult to block content from use by Microsoft AIs without becoming invisible to its search engine. There is no confirmation it uses the same crawler for both functions, although it is widely believed to be the case, according to a paper from Akamai. Search and AI rival Google uses separate bots to feed its search index and its Gemini AI, according to Akamai.

IDC Research VP Wayne Kurtzman said this was an issue that companies understood and something that they would be required to address. “There will be changes to improve available content, where personalization options will quickly improve dramatically. That includes the risk of blocking content, which increases the risk of creating false narratives: It’s something that all companies need to be aware of.”

He said that the arrival of AI is already changing the way publishers operate. “Journalism is slowly evolving away from the ad-driven model of past centuries to a quick revenue model of licensing content. Yet others also see journalism as evolving as more community centric. One of these models may create a segment of people who do not have access to the same level reporting or insights.”

Microsoft has been working on the design of PCM with several US publishers, it said, including The Associated Press, Business Insider, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, and USA Today.

“We started with a focused set of scenarios in enterprise and consumer versions of Microsoft Copilot by grounding specific responses with licensed content and running experiments to validate assumptions before scaling,” it said.

There have been other attempts to make AI access to online content contingent on payment. Last year, CloudFlare introduced a service that would compensate publishers for using their content and in 2024, a trade body formed to license content for AI models.

IDC’s Kurtzman said that ventures such as these and Microsoft’s PCM will be necessary. “Content providers need to be compensated for their work. To that extent, Microsoft is seeking to do just that.”

But Adzviser’s Gu thinks that there is still some way to go before AI can be assured about the quality of the content provided. “Without a reliable way to attribute usage and impact at scale, I’m not sure how a marketplace can fairly price content for both publishers and AI builders. I’m very supportive of the goal here. I’m just skeptical that the measurement layer is solved yet.”

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Nvidia says uninstalling Windows patch may fix gaming issues

Summary created by Smart Answers AI

In summary:

  • PCWorld reports that Nvidia recommends uninstalling Microsoft’s KB5074109 Windows update to resolve gaming visual glitches and performance issues.
  • The January security patch has caused widespread problems including black screens, application crashes, and compatibility issues with Nvidia drivers.
  • Users can temporarily remove the update through Windows Settings, though this compromises security until permanent fixes arrive in February.

Frustrated with visual glitches after installing the latest Nvidia drivers? Nvidia representatives are beginning to blame Microsoft for any problems you might have and are recommending that you uninstall the January 2026 security update.

Microsoft’s KB5074109 update for January has caused all sorts of problems, from black screens (formerly known as blue screens) and Outlook crashes to File Explorer ignoring settings stored in the desktop.ini file. It’s even breaking dial-up modems. And now it’s apparently causing issues in games as well.

The issue is that Microsoft and Nvidia released new software within a short time of one another: KB5074109 from Microsoft and the 591.86 version of Nvidia’s GeForce Game Ready drivers. Gamers initially blamed Nvidia, but support personnel pushed back, with “Manuel@Nvidia” telling users that uninstalling the Windows update might be the only fix.

“Even though it started after a Windows 11 update, we are looking into it,” Manuel wrote. “As far as I know, the only way to resolve it appears to be uninstalling KB5074109.”

So far, users seem to be reporting visual issues in various games. Manuel’s comments were made four days ago, a couple of days after Microsoft issued an optional patch that supposedly fixed a variety of issues. That patch, KB5074105, fixed various bugs that caused system crashes in addition to other improvements. Those fixes should be implemented in the next security patch rolling out on “Patch Tuesday” this month, Feb. 10, 2026.

The problem is not a simple one, as Tom’s Hardware points out: both the January and February patches are designed to fix bugs and improve the security of your PC, so removing updated code is never an ideal solution. It’s also possible that an updated Nvidia patch will solve the issue, as it’s happened before.

However, if you are having issues and wish to uninstall the January patch before the February patch drops, go to the Windows 11 Settings > Update & security > Windows Update > Update history > Uninstall updates and look for the KB5074109 update. If it’s there, you can click the uninstall button next to it. (It’s also possible that Microsoft has since patched it, via the KB5078127 out-of-band patch.) Remember, it’s always a good idea to keep the patches in place unless absolutely necessary.

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