Just a little AI resistance, as a treat

Ocado has been accused of deploying an AI-generated customer service response after a customer submitted a detailed technical bug report about malformed calendar invites, receiving a reply from "Lulu" that the customer identified as chatbot-written due to sycophantic agreement, em-dash usage and a lack of specific engagement. The customer gave 1-star scores across all metrics in a follow-up satisfaction survey, prompting a second response from Ocado apologising for the "robotic, AI-generated response" and confirming a real person had reviewed the diagnostic and passed it to the technical team. The episode, publicised via the AI Resist List and Professor Kate Devlin's EMFCamp talk, highlights growing scrutiny of AI in customer service and the difficulty of reaching technical teams at large retailers. It matters because poorly disclosed AI handling of genuine bug reports risks eroding customer trust and obscuring actionable technical feedback. What to watch next is whether Ocado clarifies its use of AI in customer service and whether the calendar invite issue is fixed.