{
  "id": 13775,
  "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/27/no-centrica-customers-dont-prefer-bots-to-humans",
  "title": "No, Centrica, customers don’t prefer bots to humans | Letter",
  "summary": "Charles MacKinnon disagrees with the British Gas owner’s justification for cutting 1,300 jobs According to Centrica’s boss, Chris O’Shea, most people using British Gas prefer to talk to a chatbot rather than a person ( Customers prefer AI chatbots, says British Gas owner as 1,300 call centre and back office jobs axed, 23 July ). He says that 90% of his customers prefer to use digital channels than speak to a person in the first instance, and that the number of customer calls has fallen by 20%. W",
  "authors": "Guardian Staff",
  "category": "news",
  "topics": "jobs-economy",
  "orgs": null,
  "regions": "uk",
  "published_at": "2026-07-27T16:47:22.000Z",
  "fetched_at": "2026-07-28T05:10:12.325Z",
  "source_slug": "guardian-ai",
  "source_name": "The Guardian",
  "source_homepage": "https://www.theguardian.com",
  "ethics_ai_record_url": "https://ethics.ai/record/13775",
  "original_url": "https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/27/no-centrica-customers-dont-prefer-bots-to-humans",
  "evidence_status": "source-only",
  "attribution": "via ethics.ai"
}