Francesca Roche sits down with Patricia Camden, US Marketing, Customer Experience and Loyalty Leader at EY, to examine a growing risk for brands deploying artificial intelligence across customer journeys: AI can act faster than people can process, understand, and trust what is happening.
For years, CX teams have been taught to remove friction, cut clicks, and move customers toward an outcome as quickly as possible.
That logic still applies to low-stakes tasks such as checking an order status or resetting a password. However, AI changes the equation by enabling systems to infer intent, pre-fill information, generate recommendations, and advance a journey before a customer has fully considered the next step.
Camden calls this mismatch the human tempo gap, where “the machine speed outpaces our human comprehension.”
The operational outcome may look seamless, but the customer can still feel rushed, confused, or excluded from a decision.
“Speed alone doesn’t make something a good experience,” Camden says.
“The problem is speed without comprehending what’s going on behind that speed.”
The stakes rise when an AI-driven interaction involves money, health, sensitive data, eligibility, travel disruption, or a major life decision.
In those moments, customers need clarity around why a recommendation has been made, what alternatives exist, and what happens after they take action.
Camden illustrates the point with a travel disruption: an airline may swiftly rebook a passenger, but the gesture can frustrate rather than reassure if the passenger has no visibility of alternative flights or control over the final choice.
She warns that when the system gets too far ahead of a customer’s ability to process a decision, the result can be “tempo shock,” the feeling of asking, “What the heck just happened?”
This challenge also has major implications for AI-powered personalization. The data may suggest a customer is considering a product or a significant life change, yet immediate outreach can feel intrusive, particularly when it reveals how closely a brand appears to be monitoring behavior.
Camden urges marketers to test whether their actions are useful or presumptive, whether they create confidence or discomfort, and whether they give customers an easy way to redirect the experience. Sometimes, she says, “the right answer is not the fastest possible message.”
Traditional performance metrics are only part of the picture. Unsubscribes, opt-outs, and journey abandonment can point to friction, but quieter signals may matter just as much, including customers double-checking information, pausing after a recommendation, or moving from self-service into a human-assisted channel.
Camden argues:
“A click does not equal confidence, and a conversion is not the same as trust.”
The full interview explores how CX and marketing leaders can identify these pressure points, design intelligent friction, and make AI experiences feel both efficient and human.
