{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0629","record_version":1,"title":"AT&T Andi chatbot refuses human handoff, customers caught in death loop","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":41.4,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":1.92,"unhedged_language":4.29},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":0,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"b08784fe95532fdf13249f3f6efcd36bc279b00e93c2c806b41cffa5a4ad509a"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":null,"safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-07-23","incident_class":"operational_error","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"AT&T’s Andi chatbot handled a customer report that his dog had cut the line to his router and needed a technician. According to the report, the customer wanted to reach a human agent, but the chatbot kept piling up requests without registering the complaint and kept running in circles. The reporter describes this as a death loop, based on a published image gallery of the conversation. The report does not state whether AT&T has changed the chatbot or resolved the customer issue.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"minor","harm_class":[],"affected_description":null,"protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://wccftech.com/att-andi-ai-chatbot-death-loop-conversation-with-customer/","publisher":"Wccftech","date":"2026-07-23","type":"press","title":"AT&T Cozing Up To AI Has Made Its Customer Service Outrageously Poor; Company’s Andi Chatbot Refuses To Hand Over Reins To A Human, Beginning A “Death Loop” - Wccftech","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report"}],"per_field_confidence":{"context.country":"C","event.incident_class":"C","impact.severity":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The acceleration of AI to help improve efficiency and upgrade the user experience might have been the original intention of U.S. carriers like AT&T, but the end result isn’t what subscribers were hoping to see."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"One customer hoping to talk to a human being to resolve his complaint began explaining his situation to AT&T’s Andi chatbot, and, according to the conversations you’re about to see, it became a worldly struggle, as the program underwent a “death loop” that probably scarred the individual to a considerable extent."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"One customer hoping to talk to a human being to resolve his complaint began explaining his situation to AT&T’s Andi chatbot, and, according to the conversations you’re about to see, it became a worldly struggle, as the program underwent a “death loop” that probably scarred the individual to a considerable extent."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"One customer hoping to talk to a human being to resolve his complaint began explaining his situation to AT&T’s Andi chatbot, and, according to the conversations you’re about to see, it became a worldly struggle, as the program underwent a “death loop” that probably scarred the individual to a considerable extent."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"The Redditor’s dog had cut the line connected to the router, and a technician was required to replace the cable, which would have been a fairly simple complaint to tackle."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Not for AT&T’s Andi, because it was piling up requests after requests while failing to register a complaint."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"What was even more frustrating was that after you have a look at the image gallery showing the lengthy conversation between the Redditor and Andi requesting a human agent to speak to, the AI chatbot keeps running around in circles."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"Only one press source (Wccftech, a relay of a Reddit post) is given; no statement from AT&T, no model name, version, developer, harness, tools, permissions, or autonomy level is stated, so those fields are omitted. No incident date, detection date or disclosure date appears in the body text; the article header date is not quoted and was not used. No detection method, root cause, trigger, containment, duration or remediation is stated. Judgements made by me: incident_class set to operational_error because the source describes a chatbot conversation loop without any security or agentic failure; severity set to minor because the source describes one customer and names no third party, which fits the minor test of contained scope; harm_class set to operational from the stated failure to resolve the complaint. The title says customers but the source describes one customer. No risk or control from the RK or control list is stated as held, failed or missing, so risks and links are empty. No fix or advice is reported, so remediations are empty. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (Publisher not yet named · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":null,"org_size_band":null,"country":"US","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null}}