The Human in the Loop Wasn't in the Brochure
Nov 1, 2026
5 min read
On October 31, CNBC published an investigation with the kind of headline the industry deserves: humans are still doing the work behind some AI agents. The reporting describes personal AI agent startups — Dazzle AI, Duckbill, and Wajo AI are named — routing phone calls and real-world tasks to human workers when their software can’t complete the job. The products are sold as autonomous digital assistants. Behind the curtain, according to the report, the fallback when the algorithm can’t figure it out is… a person with a headset.
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