When should an AI experience hand over to people?

An AI experience should hand over to a person when the interaction requires personal judgement, sensitive support or help through frustration. Routine or embarrassing exchanges may be better served by clearly non-human assistance, but customers should have an option to reach a person.

Match human involvement to the moment

Choose human involvement according to the emotional needs of the interaction, rather than assuming AI should always act like a person. Set the boundary as a brand decision, not just a technical choice.

In a case study shared by Peat, Klarna used clearly non-human, transactional AI to follow up on missed payments. Customers had a better brand experience than when a human called: the machine handled the task without the embarrassment of being chased by a person. Fake empathy and small talk were not needed.

Telstra drew a different boundary within customer service. AI handled broadband issues, but a person always handled calls to cancel a deceased partner's phone contract. The distinction makes sensitive support a deliberate commitment rather than a decision left to automation.

Define those boundaries before deployment, including where friction or frustration calls for genuine human interaction. Treat AI as a way to provide responsive, helpful service, not simply to cut costs. Gartner reported in 2026 that 87% of B2B and B2C customers say companies using GenAI for customer service must provide an option to reach a human agent.

Sources: The Prompt: Are your brand guidelines ready to deliver behaviour?, The Prompt: Why brand matters more than ever in an AI world

How The Frameworks helps

Connecting AI experiences with human support

Your audiences need an AI experience that works with human support rather than leaving them to manage the gap between the two. The Frameworks focuses on what the relationship between automated responses and human involvement says about your brand, not just how the AI sounds. It works with you to connect audience needs and brand strategy with decisions about the experience's behaviour, including the role of human oversight and the limits of automated interaction.

The Frameworks provides brand strategy that defines that behaviour and AI experience design and development that puts it into practice. Personalised interactions draw on user inputs, trusted content and structured rules, with human oversight built into the approach. You get an experience with a defined role for AI and for people, so its responses and boundaries reflect your brand's commitments rather than leaving those decisions to the generated wording alone.

Let’s talk about human support in AI experiences 

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