It’s not all going well, however.
A Canadian tribunal has ordered Air Canada to pay a customer more than $600 in damages and tribunal fees after a chatbot provided false information about bereavement fares. The tribunal ruled that Air Canada was responsible for the accuracy of the information on its website, regardless of whether it came from a chatbot or a static page.
While not directly related, it does make sense why Microsoft is expanding the data protection features of Copilot, allowing more users with eligible work or student accounts to access commercial data protection at no additional cost. This update addresses confidentiality issues by ensuring that prompts and responses are not saved, the data is not used to train models, and Microsoft has no user or chat data access. Users will see a “Protected” badge and a message indicating their personal and company data are protected. The expanded protection will be available on mobile, web browsers, Microsoft Edge, and Windows taskbar.
I would expect a similar outcome in the US. You, and your customers, are responsible for the outcomes of the information presented to your customers. This incident not only highlights the legal and financial risks companies face when deploying these technologies but also serves as a cautionary tale about the importance of ensuring the accuracy and reliability of automated customer service tools.
This is the value service providers bring to the table.