Chatbot statistics 2026: 51 figures on customer service, AI and messaging apps, each from its original source
Muhammad Hamza, Co-founderLinkedIn
Published Updated
These chatbot statistics cover how people use AI chatbots, what customers think of chatbots in customer service, what service teams report about AI, and how customers reach businesses on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and LINE. Each figure is one line you can quote, linked to the original report or announcement, with the year it was published.
We make HiQBot, a customer service platform, and we have left our own numbers out: none of them has been independently checked. Every figure below was read on the publisher's own page on 12 November 2026. Most customer service surveys are run by software vendors, so we name the vendor and the sample in the sources table.
Chatbot statistics at a glance
- About half of US adults (49%) use AI chatbots, and about a quarter use one every day. (Pew Research Center, 2026)
- 80% of consumers are willing to use AI customer service, but two-thirds still prefer a person. (Five9, 2026)
- 78% of consumers have tried to get past an AI agent to reach a person. (Twilio, 2026)
- Trust in AI more than doubles, from 26% to 55%, when customers can see a way to reach a person. (Five9, 2026)
- 88% of customers expect faster responses than a year ago. (Zendesk, 2025)
- 86% of companies think customers are happy with their AI customer service; 51% of consumers agree. (Twilio, 2026)
- WhatsApp has more than 3 billion monthly users, including more than 100 million in the US. (Meta, 2025)
Chatbot usage and adoption statistics
How many people use AI chatbots, and how many businesses already use AI in customer service.
- About half of US adults (49%) now use AI chatbots, up from a third in 2024. Pew changed the question wording in 2026, so the two years are close but not identical measures. (Pew Research Center, 2026)
- About a quarter of US adults (24%) use a chatbot every day. (Pew Research Center, 2026)
- 44% of US adults have used ChatGPT, up from 34% a year earlier. The 2026 question also asked about other chatbots, so the two years are close but not identical measures. (Pew Research Center, 2026)
- 38% of employed US adults use chatbots for tasks at work. (Pew Research Center, 2026)
- 58% of US adults under 30 had used ChatGPT by early 2025, up from 33% in 2023. (Pew Research Center, 2025)
- Only 5% of US adults who don’t use chatbots think it is extremely or very likely they will start in the next year. (Pew Research Center, 2026)
- 85% of consumers had dealt with an AI agent in the past three months. (Twilio, 2025)
- 92% of organizations have implemented or piloted AI in customer service. (Five9, 2026)
- 82% of senior support leaders invested in AI for customer service in the past 12 months, but only 10% of the 2,470 support professionals surveyed say they have reached a mature deployment. (Intercom, 2026)
Chatbot customer service statistics: what customers think
Customers will use a chatbot when it is fast and a person is easy to reach. Most still prefer a person.
- 80% of consumers are willing to use AI customer service, but two-thirds still prefer speaking with a person. (Five9, 2026)
- 69% of consumers prefer dealing with real people, yet 72% would choose an AI agent if it were guaranteed to solve their issue faster. (Twilio, 2025)
- 59% of consumers would rather use an instant AI chatbot than wait for a live agent. (Five9, 2025)
- 34% are more likely to choose an AI chatbot over a person than a year ago, and 64% say the chatbots they use have improved. (Twilio, 2026)
- 78% of consumers have tried to get past an AI agent to reach a person. (Twilio, 2026)
- 63% want a quick, easy way to reach a live person at any time. (Twilio, 2026)
- 78% say being able to switch from an AI agent to a person matters, but only 15% have had a seamless handoff. (Twilio, 2025)
- Trust in AI more than doubles, from 26% to 55%, when customers can see a way to reach a person. (Five9, 2026)
- 92% of consumers give AI less than 10 minutes before asking for a person. (Five9, 2026)
- 76% think an AI agent should say it is AI at the start of a conversation; only 32% of businesses say they actively prioritise AI transparency when designing agents. (Twilio, 2026)
- 47% of consumers find AI useful for customer service, but only 20% use it most of the time or always. (Five9, 2026)
- 4 in 10 consumers say they are less likely to use a company at all if it uses AI for customer service. (Five9, 2026)
- Nearly 1 in 5 consumers who used AI for customer service saw no benefit, a failure rate almost four times higher than for AI use in general. (Qualtrics XM Institute, 2025)
- Half of consumers worry that companies’ AI will stop them reaching a person. (Qualtrics XM Institute, 2025)
AI customer service statistics: what businesses report
What service teams say AI already handles, and where they and their customers disagree.
- Businesses say AI agents handle half of their customer service interactions today and expect 63% by 2027. (Twilio, 2026)
- Service professionals estimate AI handles 30% of cases today and expect half by 2027. (Salesforce, 2025)
- Service reps using AI spend 20% less time on routine cases, about four hours a week. (Salesforce, 2025)
- 86% of companies believe customers are satisfied with their AI customer service; 51% of consumers agree. (Twilio, 2026)
- 51% of service leaders say security concerns have delayed or limited their AI plans. (Salesforce, 2025)
- 95% of consumers expect an explanation for decisions made by AI. (Zendesk, 2025)
- 42% of customers trust businesses to use AI ethically, down from 58% in 2023. (Salesforce, 2024)
- Over a third of consumers would work with an AI agent instead of a person to avoid repeating themselves. (Salesforce, 2024)
Customer service statistics: speed, repetition and channels
What customers expect from any service team, with or without a chatbot.
- 88% of customers expect faster responses than they did a year ago. (Zendesk, 2025)
- 74% of consumers now expect customer service to be available around the clock because of AI. (Zendesk, 2025)
- 86% of consumers say responsiveness and an accurate fix strongly influence what they buy. (Zendesk, 2025)
- 74% are frustrated when they have to repeat information, and 81% want the next agent to pick up the conversation where it left off. (Zendesk, 2025)
- 83% of consumers still have to repeat themselves at least sometimes after being transferred. (Five9, 2026)
- 69% of consumers expect consistent interactions across departments. (Salesforce, 2024)
- 56% prefer the phone for general issues, rising to 74% for complex or urgent ones. (Five9, 2025)
- 59% say the channel they prefer depends on the situation, and 60% say short waits are critical. (Five9, 2025)
- 40% of consumers stop doing business with a company after one bad experience. (Five9, 2025)
- 30% of consumers say nothing at all after a bad experience, up nine points since 2021. (Qualtrics XM Institute, 2025)
WhatsApp business statistics
How many people use WhatsApp, and how much business already runs through it.
- WhatsApp has more than 3 billion monthly users, including more than 100 million in the US. (Meta, 2025)
- More than 2 billion people use WhatsApp every day. (Meta, 2026)
- Meta said the WhatsApp Business app had 200 million users in mid-2023. (Meta, 2023)
- Meta’s revenue from businesses paying to message customers on WhatsApp passed a $2 billion annual run-rate at the end of 2025. (Meta, 2026)
- People were having more than 1 million conversations a week with Meta’s business AIs on its messaging apps by early 2026, with early traction in Mexico and the Philippines. (Meta, 2026)
- So much buying happens over messaging in Thailand and Vietnam that both are among Meta’s top 10 or 11 countries by revenue, though they rank in the 30s by GDP. (Meta, 2025)
Instagram, Messenger and LINE statistics
The other messaging apps customers use to reach businesses, by the numbers each company gives.
- Instagram has just under 2 billion daily users. (Meta, 2026)
- As many messages are sent each day on Instagram as on Messenger, which more than a billion people use each month. (Meta, 2025)
- LINE passed 100 million monthly users in Japan at the end of December 2025. (LY Corporation, 2026)
- LINE’s 98 million monthly users in Japan in March 2025 covered about 80% of the population. (LY Corporation, 2026)
What the numbers mean for a small business
Several of these surveys, by different companies in different countries, point the same way: customers want a quick answer at any hour and will take it from a chatbot, as long as a person is easy to reach and they don't have to explain the problem again.
For a small team, that means replying fast after hours too, showing customers how to reach a person, and giving whoever takes over the whole conversation so far. It also means answering on the apps customers already use, which for many businesses is WhatsApp and Instagram as well as the website.
HiQBot's AI agent answers from your own files and pages, and live chat lets your team take over any conversation with its full history, on website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram and LINE. For a side-by-side look at other tools, see our guide to the best customer service chatbots.
Statistics we left out, and why
Many chatbot statistics pages repeat figures whose original source no longer exists, or never showed how the number was measured. We left these out:
- “Chatbots will save businesses $8 billion a year by 2022” (Juniper Research): a forecast for a year that has passed, with no original report we could open.
- “Chatbots can answer 80% of routine questions” (attributed to IBM): from around 2017, with no method we could find.
- “80% of customer service organizations will use generative AI by 2025” (attributed to Gartner): we could not find it on a Gartner page, and the date has passed.
- Gartner's 2026 customer service surveys: we could not open Gartner's newsroom, so we could not check the wording. We will add them once we can.
- Telegram's user count: its founder said in March 2025 that Telegram has more than 1 billion monthly users, but Telegram's own site would not load for us, so we could not check it at the source.
- Chatbot market-size forecasts: research firms' 2026 estimates disagree, and the reports that explain the method are sold, not published.
- Customer service figures quoted in blog roundups with no edition, sample or method, even when they carry a well-known company's name.
Sources and how each survey was run
| Source | Year | Who was asked, and when |
|---|---|---|
| Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026 | 2026 | 5,119 US adults, American Trends Panel, 17-23 February 2026 |
| Pew Research Center, ChatGPT use | 2025 | 5,123 US adults, American Trends Panel, 24 February-2 March 2025 |
| Pew Research Center, why some people don’t use chatbots | 2026 | Short read of 9 October 2026 on US adults who don’t use chatbots |
| Twilio, 2026 Customer Insights Series | 2026 | 7,652 consumers and 660 business leaders in 18 markets, 9 April-1 May 2026 (vendor survey) |
| Twilio, Inside the Conversational AI Revolution | 2025 | 4,800 consumers and 457 business leaders in 15 countries, August-October 2025 (vendor survey) |
| Five9, 2026 Consumer CX Report | 2026 | 3,000 consumers in the US, UK and Germany, April 2026, run by Hanover Research (vendor survey) |
| Five9, 2026 Business Leaders CX Report | 2026 | 3,000 consumers and 600 decision-makers in the US, UK and Germany, April 2026, run by Hanover Research (vendor survey) |
| Five9, 2025 Customer Experience Report | 2025 | 1,006 people in the US, UK and Canada, run by Zogby Analytics; released March 2025 (vendor survey) |
| Zendesk, CX Trends 2026 | 2025 | 6,182 consumers and 5,115 business respondents in 22 countries, June 2025 (vendor survey) |
| Zendesk, CX Trends 2026 report site | 2025 | Same June 2025 survey as the Zendesk press release (vendor survey) |
| Salesforce, State of Service, 7th edition | 2025 | 6,500 service professionals and decision makers in 40 countries, 25 April-6 June 2025 (vendor survey) |
| Salesforce, State of the AI Connected Customer | 2024 | 15,015 consumers in 18 markets, surveyed online by YouGov, July-August 2024 (vendor survey) |
| Salesforce, State of the AI Connected Customer (report) | 2024 | 15,015 consumers and 1,570 business buyers in 18 countries, 26 July-20 August 2024 (vendor survey) |
| Qualtrics XM Institute, 2026 Consumer Experience Trends | 2025 | More than 20,000 consumers in 14 countries, Q3 2025 (vendor research institute) |
| Intercom, 2026 Customer Service Transformation Report | 2026 | 2,470 support professionals, Q4 2025 (vendor survey) |
| Meta, Q4 2025 earnings call transcript | 2026 | Figures Meta’s CEO and CFO gave on the quarterly results call, 28 January 2026 (company-reported) |
| Meta, Q1 2025 earnings call transcript | 2025 | Figures Meta’s CEO gave on the quarterly results call, 30 April 2025 (company-reported) |
| Meta, Q2 2023 earnings call transcript | 2023 | Figure Meta’s CEO gave on the quarterly results call, 26 July 2023 (company-reported) |
| LY Corporation, LINE passes 100 million monthly users in Japan (press release, Japanese) | 2026 | Monthly LINE users in Japan at the end of December 2025, released 29 January 2026 (company-reported) |
| LY Corporation, Media Guide | 2026 | LINE’s monthly users in Japan in late March 2025 against Japan’s official population figure (company-reported) |
How to cite this page
You are welcome to use any figure here. Please cite the original source linked next to it, and link to this page if it helped you find it: “Chatbot statistics 2026, HiQBot, https://www.hiqbot.com/blog/chatbot-statistics/”. We check the sources again when new editions come out and update the date at the top.
Common questions
How many people use chatbots?
About half of US adults (49%) used AI chatbots in February 2026, up from about a third in 2024, according to Pew Research Center. About a quarter use one every day, and 44% have used ChatGPT.
Do customers prefer chatbots or humans?
Most still prefer a person, but many will use a chatbot when it is faster. In Five9's 2026 survey, 80% were willing to use AI customer service while two-thirds preferred a person. Twilio found 72% would choose an AI agent if it were guaranteed to solve the issue faster.
How fast do customers expect a reply?
Faster than before: 88% of customers expect quicker responses than a year ago, according to Zendesk's CX Trends 2026, and 74% now expect service around the clock. They give AI little time, too: 92% give it less than 10 minutes before asking for a person (Five9, 2026).
How many businesses use AI in customer service?
Most have at least started. Five9's 2026 survey of business decision-makers found 92% of organizations had implemented or piloted AI in customer service, and Intercom found 82% of senior support leaders had invested in it in the past year, though only 10% of the support professionals it surveyed called their deployment mature.
How many people use WhatsApp for business?
Meta said the WhatsApp Business app had 200 million users in mid-2023. WhatsApp itself has more than 3 billion monthly users, and Meta's revenue from businesses paying to message customers on it passed a $2 billion annual run-rate at the end of 2025.
Are chatbots good for customer service?
They help when they answer quickly and hand over cleanly. Trust in AI more than doubles, from 26% to 55%, when a person is visibly reachable (Five9, 2026), while only 15% of consumers have had a seamless handoff from AI to a person (Twilio, 2025).
Sources were read on 12 November 2026. How we write and check posts: editorial standards.