Abstract
Drawing on social exchange and anthropomorphism theory, this research examines the role of virtual conversational assistants (VCA) as frontline employees. Specifically, we investigate the effects of AI-derived features, such as anthropomorphism, in building Human-Machine relationships. Drawing on a qualitative interpretivist approach, 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with global users of Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. Our findings suggest anthropomorphism is an important factor in understanding the development of trust within Human-Machine interactions. More specifically, the effects of a humanised voice, interactive communication capability and cognitive features evoke a sense of social presence that may positively or negatively impact user trust. We propose that the interplay between a user’s perceptions of the bright and dark sides of interacting with an AI-empowered anthropomorphised machine determines categories of trust and subsequent customer engagement behaviours with this embedded form of organisational frontline.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 314-324 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Australasian Marketing Journal |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 19 Jun 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © 2023 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC 4.0). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).Keywords
- anthropomorphism
- engagement
- organisational frontlines
- trust
- virtual conversational assistant