Gartner: customers are nearly 3x more likely to use ChatGPT than a company's own chatbot

Companies have spent years pouring money into their own AI chatbots for customer support, but customers are steering clear of them. People are almost three times more likely to resolve a service problem through a third-party GenAI tool like ChatGPT than through a company's branded bot. That's the conclusion research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc. drew from a customer survey.

What the Gartner survey found

Gartner asked 3566 customers which tool they use when they need to fix a service problem or get help from a company. The result is awkward for businesses: instead of using the chatbot built into a company's website or app, people more often open ChatGPT or another general-purpose AI service they already know and sort out the issue there.

• The survey was conducted by research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc.
• The sample included 3566 customers
• People are roughly 3 times more likely to choose a third-party GenAI app than a company's branded chatbot
• The findings specifically cover resolving service issues and contacting support

Why customers choose someone else's AI

For years, businesses have invested in their own AI-powered support systems, from simple FAQ bots to full-fledged agents built into customer account portals. The logic was simple: keep customers inside the company's ecosystem and take load off human agents. But Gartner's data shows this bet isn't paying off the way businesses expected. Customers prefer a familiar, general-purpose tool rather than learning to use yet another branded bot on every individual website.

From the user's side, the reasoning is clear too: ChatGPT is already installed on their phone or open in a browser tab, it responds quickly, and it often phrases answers more clearly than a narrowly specialized corporate bot trained only on one company's internal policies.

What businesses lose

When a customer resolves an issue through a third-party app, the company loses control of the conversation. It can't see what ChatGPT actually told its customer, can't steer the conversation toward the right workflow, and doesn't collect data on the request itself. Meanwhile, the budget for building and maintaining its own bot is already spent, and users still aren't choosing it. That leaves businesses with a choice: either dramatically improve the quality of their AI assistants, or accept that the real support interface for customers is increasingly not the company's website but a third-party GenAI service.

What it means

Gartner's finding calls into question the return on businesses' billion-dollar investments in their own AI support bots. While companies race to build branded assistants, customers have already voted with their feet for a simpler path: asking the AI they already use every day.

Frequently asked questions

How many customers did Gartner survey for this study?

Gartner surveyed 3566 customers about which tool they use to resolve service problems and contact support.

How much more often do customers prefer

ChatGPT over branded bots?

According to Gartner, people are roughly three times more likely to choose a third-party GenAI tool like ChatGPT than the company's own chatbot to resolve a service problem.