Closing a bank account asynchronously

I had to close a bank account recently and I'd originally thought that the only way to do it, in 2024, was to call.

After feeding some details through what was probably a speech-to-text system over the phone, I was told that there is actually a new way to do that through the bank's mobile app that I already use.

It was unclear how long I was going to have to wait (they don't tell you) and I was curious about how well it works through the app, so I hung up and tried doing it through the app instead.

I was first hit with prompts that were quite obviously those of an AI agent (wasn't a problem but could have been friendlier, less robotic prompts), which was fine. At the end of the prompts, I was told that I had to wait because it's "just like exchanging text with a friend in real life" (paraphrased), which was kind of strange.

I did manage to close my bank account successfully after exchanging roughly another 20 messages with a real person.

It was an interesting experience but the experience left a lot to be desired: having had experience of what other AI agents can do elsewhere, I'm not convinced that this is the best we can do without breaking the bank.

Anyhow! At least for the time being, I still prefer the "would you like us to give you a call back when someone is available to help you" option.