--- title: "How much more do customer support agents get done with AI? (14–15%) | The AI at Work Fact Book" description: "Support agents with an AI assistant resolved 14 to 15 percent more issues per hour in one firm's study; an Alibaba trial found 1 to 8 percent. Who gains, sources and misquoted figures." url: "https://evy.so/facts/ai-customer-support-productivity/" last_updated: "2026-10-16" --- F-10 · What AI Saves # How much more do customer support agents get done with AI? In the largest real-world study, chat agents at a Fortune 500 software firm resolved 14 to 15 percent more issues per hour with an AI assistant, and the least skilled gained 30 to 36 percent. A larger randomized trial at Alibaba found much smaller speed gains, with chats 1 to 8 percent faster. 14–15% more issues resolved per hour, in one firm's study Across all 2 studies: 1 to 15 percent, counting the Alibaba trial. - Low confidence - 2 primary sources - 2025 to 2026 - Last checked October 14, 2026 ## Cite this EVY (2026). How much more do customer support agents get done with AI? The AI at Work Fact Book, F-10. https://evy.so/facts/ai-customer-support-productivity/ (last checked October 14, 2026). CC BY 4.0. Copy citation [Data as JSON](https://evy.so/facts/ai-customer-support-productivity.json) [Markdown](https://evy.so/facts/ai-customer-support-productivity.md) ## How to read it The two studies measure different things. The software firm's figure counts issues resolved per hour, which captures both faster chats and handling several chats at once, with 2020 to 2021 data and a GPT-3-era tool. The Alibaba trial measures the length of single chats over four weeks, among new agents only, with an assistant that helps only at the start of each chat. They agree on who gains most and disagree on how much overall. ## Every study on one scale Shaded: 14–15% Dashed: both studies One figure A range in one study Chart values as text - Scale: % faster or more issues resolved. Shaded range: 14–15%; dashed, both studies: 1.1% to 15.2%. - Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond (2025): 13.8–15.2% more resolved - Ni et al., Alibaba (2026): 1.1–8.2% faster **Why low confidence:** The 14 to 15 percent comes from a single study at a single firm, in two versions of the same paper. The only other large field experiment, at Alibaba, measures different things and finds much smaller speed gains. ## Sources Sources for F-10 | Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Generative AI at Work (Quarterly Journal of Economics) | Erik Brynjolfsson (Stanford), Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond (MIT) | 2025 | 5,172 chat support agents at one Fortune 500 software firm, mostly in the Philippines, 3 million chats | Staggered rollout of a GPT-3-based reply assistant, 2020 to 2021, compared before and after with the firm's own records. The 2023 NBER version gives 13.8%. | 15.2% more issues resolved per hour; handle time down 8.5%; customer satisfaction unchanged “increases worker productivity, as measured by issues resolved per hour, by 15% on average” | [doi.org ↗](https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjae044) | | Generative AI in Action: Field Experimental Evidence from Alibaba's Customer Service Operations | Xiao Ni, Yiwei Wang, Tianjun Feng, Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu, Yitong Wang and Congyi Zhou (Fudan, Zhejiang University, Dartmouth Tuck, Alibaba Group) | 2026 | 5,940 new agents with under a year of tenure, about 2.56 million chats on Taobao, China | Four-week randomized trial run by Alibaba, January to February 2024. The assistant drafts a diagnosis and solution at the start of each chat. One author works at Alibaba. | Issues identified 8.2% faster and chats 1.1% shorter; dissatisfaction down 3.4% “reduced issue identification time and chat duration by 8.2% and 1.1%, respectively” | [arxiv.org ↗](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.29888) | Who gains ## Which support agents gain the most from AI? The weakest. At the software firm, less skilled and less experienced agents gained 30% and the lowest-skilled fifth 36%, while the most skilled saw no significant change and their quality slipped slightly. At Alibaba, customer ratings for the lowest-performing fifth of agents rose 0.81 points on a 5-point scale and fell 0.28 points for the top fifth. F-12 compares this pattern across studies. ## Numbers you may have seen These figures circulate widely. Here is what the original source says. - **AI makes support agents 14% more productive, and novices 34% more.** Those are the 2023 working-paper figures. The peer-reviewed 2025 version says 15% on average, 30% for less skilled and less experienced agents, and 36% for the lowest-skilled fifth. - **Klarna's AI assistant does the work of 700 agents.** Klarna's 2024 press release describes a chatbot answering chats on its own. It gives no method and says nothing about how productive human agents are with AI. ## More from What AI Saves - [F-08**3–5.4%**How much time does AI save knowledge workers?](https://evy.so/facts/time-saved-by-ai-at-work/) - [F-09**25–40%**How much faster do people finish writing tasks with AI, and is the work better?](https://evy.so/facts/ai-writing-speed-and-quality/) - [F-11**21–26%**How much faster do developers code with AI assistants?](https://evy.so/facts/ai-coding-speed/) - [F-12**27–46%**Does AI help less-experienced workers more than experienced ones?](https://evy.so/facts/ai-helps-less-experienced-workers-more/) - [F-13**14–25%**When does AI make work slower or worse?](https://evy.so/facts/when-ai-makes-work-worse/) [The whole chapter](https://evy.so/facts/what-ai-saves/) · [Chapter poster](https://evy.so/facts/what-ai-saves/sheet/) · [All of The AI at Work Fact Book](https://evy.so/facts/)