China implements new national standard for AI customer service

China's first national standard focusing on coordination between artificial intelligence (AI) and human customer service officially took effect on Tuesday, aiming to address common pain points in AI-powered customer services.

The national standard calls for a scientific and reasonable division of responsibilities between AI and human agents.

In recent years, advances in large language models have significantly enhanced the capabilities of AI customer service systems. They can now better understand context, conduct multi-turn conversations, recognize emotions and handle queries in multiple languages, prompting their wider adoption across industries.

Under the new standard, AI customer service should primarily handle standardized and routine inquiries, while human agents should take priority in dealing with complex issues and matters involving safety.

The standard also addresses complaints about hidden or inconvenient options for switching to human customer service. It requires AI systems to provide an easy-to-find access point to human agents and ensure a smooth handover. Once the switch is made, customer information should be transferred to the human agent so that customers do not have to repeat their questions or provide the same information again.

The standard also sets requirements for AI-generated responses to prevent what has been described as "false promises" by AI customer service systems.

AI can automatically respond to general inquiries and provide product information, but such responses should carry clear labels indicating that they are AI-generated, along with appropriate risk warnings.

For issues involving prices, discounts, refunds, compensation or contract changes, AI customer service can explain relevant rules, collect supporting materials and generate service requests. However, final confirmation must be handled by a human customer service agent or through a standardized procedure.

The standard is intended to further clarify the respective roles of AI and human customer service while improving the overall customer experience as AI-powered services become increasingly widespread.