At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of customer engagement platform Freshworks, declared that artificial intelligence has now surpassed humans in delivering superior customer service. In a statement that captured significant attention among global business leaders and technologists, Mathrubootham argued that AI systems are now more effective than human agents at understanding, addressing, and resolving customer concerns — a claim with wide-reaching implications for businesses and labor markets alike.
The comments, initially reported by Startup News FYI in the article “Davos 2026: AI Beats Humans At Keeping Customers Happy, Says Freshworks CEO,” reflect a broader trend within the technology sector, where AI-driven automation is shifting from backend optimization to taking center stage in customer-facing roles. At Davos, Mathrubootham pointed to developments in natural language processing and machine learning that have enabled chatbots and AI service representatives to not only handle high volumes of requests at scale, but also to anticipate customer needs and provide tailored support in ways he contends are often more consistent and efficient than human assistance.
According to Mathrubootham, AI-driven customer support reduces friction by eliminating typical human errors, emotional variability, and delays in response. He emphasized that modern AI is capable of delivering empathy through tone-adjusted responses, quick contextual understanding, and seamless escalation to human agents when necessary. This, he argued, is leading to higher customer satisfaction levels and faster resolution times.
Critically, the Freshworks CEO clarified that AI is not being positioned to replace humans entirely, but rather to augment support teams by handling repetitive and routine tasks. Human workers, he suggested, could be redirected to higher-order problem-solving and customer relationship functions, provided that proper reskilling and workforce transition planning takes place.
Still, the broader economic implications of AI-led service transformation remain a topic of debate. While businesses stand to gain efficiency and scalability, there are mounting concerns about job displacement in traditionally stable service sectors. How quickly companies adopt AI for front-line customer service — and what safeguards they implement for displaced workers — will be key policy questions moving forward.
Mathrubootham’s remarks contribute to a growing chorus of tech industry leaders promoting AI not only as a back-office tool but as a public-facing representative of brands. As AI systems become increasingly adept at acting on customer data and delivering results aligned with business goals, the next few years will likely test how customers respond to this shift — and whether they indeed feel more understood, valued, and satisfied when machines rather than humans are helping them.
