Twilio Report finds a new hurdle for AI customer service

Indian consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable with AI customer service, but they are also getting less patient with one basic failure: having to explain themselves again.

Twilio’s 2026 Customer Insights Series highlights this gap through what it calls “AI amnesia”, where AI lacks context from earlier interactions. Nearly seven in 10 Indian consumers have stopped an AI interaction because the system lacked basic information about them or their history. For 5%, the experience was enough to end their relationship with the brand altogether.

Twilio report finds a sharp memory gap

The disconnect is especially clear between businesses and consumers. Nearly 89% of Indian brands believe their AI agents can recognise returning customers and access their history. Yet 75% of consumers say they still have to repeat information they have already shared.

Even handing the conversation to a human does not always solve it. More than half, or 51%, say they have had to repeat themselves or fill in missing information after an AI-to-human handoff.

The Twilio report suggests that the issue is no longer simply whether businesses have deployed AI. It is whether that AI can carry context from one interaction to the next.

Indian consumers are not rejecting AI

The irony is that consumers are becoming more open to AI even as they point out its weaknesses. Some 83% say the AI bots they have used have improved over the past year, while AI agents save Indian consumers an average of 101 seconds per interaction, the highest figure in APAC.

Two-thirds are also more likely to choose an AI chatbot over a human than they were a year ago. Around 52% cite 24/7 assistance as a way AI has improved their satisfaction with brands.

That growing comfort extends to more advanced Customer support AI. Eight in 10 consumers are comfortable with AI agents from different companies communicating directly to resolve issues. More than nine in 10 would trust AI to handle tasks such as scheduling appointments or processing product returns.

AI readiness now comes with conditions

Businesses are moving in the same direction. AI agents currently handle 55% of customer service interactions, with business leaders expecting that figure to reach 74% by 2027.

But greater AI use also raises expectations around Chatbot memory and transparency. While 71% of consumers want brands to disclose AI use at the start of an interaction, only 31% of brands do so from the beginning.

Consumers also want an easy route to a human, visibility into the personal data AI can access and human approval for high-stakes actions.

The message from the Twilio report is therefore less about consumers choosing AI over humans. It is about what they expect AI to do better. Speed and availability are becoming normal. The harder test is whether AI can remember context, explain what it is doing and give customers control when it matters.

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