AI agents were supposedly going to be game-changers for both sides of consumer transactions—agents would handle tasks like bookings, support, and services 24/7, freeing humans for other work. Turns out businesses don’t like dealing with AI agents, and consumers don’t want them handling their business.
Earlier this week, United Airlines announced that it would ban AI agents from making bookings on behalf of customers, citing privacy concerns, the risk of exposing sensitive data to third parties, and the potential for unintended or unwanted transactions bogging down the process for everyone. The airline also noted that agents can’t do certain things, like acknowledge that travel bags do not contain banned substances like explosives. Allowing a bot to check that box on a person’s behalf might violate rules from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation.
While many of the AI agent makers have claimed their agents are capable of relatively simple tasks like bookings, it seems United probably didn’t have much to worry about either way. Most people are just not using these things.
Uber just revealed in its latest quarterly earnings call that of the 320 million trips that its Uber and Uber Eats drivers made over the course of the week of Halloween, only 500 of them were placed by an AI agent.
