I think this perspective is very short sighted. You will lose customers to automation, but businesses wont turn away customers because of automation.
Customers and prospects don't want to interact with machines, but businesses should be willing to give customers what they want.
The idea that a tool can be rolled out to millions of consumers, even with limited use cases and not have to get adoption from businesses to be useful is IMHO a much bigger opportunity and much better use case than rolling out a tool to businesses that make the interaction less personal.
Customers need to trust businesses, business only need to collect money from customers.
I think everyone who focuses on chatbots from the business use case perspective is missing the bigger opportunity.
A technology that can give a consumer access to ALL businesses, not just the ones who adopt a new technology offers much more utility than serving businesses or the shortsighted use cases like saving time and money for the business.