Chatbots—those little text bubbles that pop up in the corner of so many consumer sites—have long been a fixture in the digital world. Now, the growing popularity of generative AI programs has only supercharged their presence, and their abilities.
Chatbots—those little text bubbles that pop up in the corner of so many consumer sites—have long been a fixture in the digital world. Now, the growing popularity of generative AI programs has only supercharged their presence, and their abilities.
Conversations with ChatGPT and similar apps are getting more realistic by the day. Artificial intelligence-powered chatbots are now woven into many businesses‘ customer service, outreach and sales approaches.
But how is this widespread AI adoption affecting consumer behavior? That’s a question for Scott Schanke, an assistant professor in UWM’s Lubar College of Business. His work, which is one of several AI-focused research projects at UWM, centers on the design of AI agents for public-facing business interactions, and how different interfaces can make or break consumer trust.
„AI agents (can) fill this sort of human-facing job role“, Schanke said. „Maybe it’s collecting information or facilitating a sale.“
A lot goes into making sure consumers actually finish filling out a form or complete a purchase. Different traits can sway a person’s interaction with a chatbot, and ultimately an organization’s ability to gain their trust.
Exploring how chatbots shape consumer interaction will give businesses valuable insight into the best ways to deploy new AI technologies. This includes other formats as well, such as voice clones. Schanke’s work will also help researchers pinpoint future uses for the technology—both constructive and nefarious.
„The whole idea here is that we need to try and be forward-looking“, Schanke says. „This is sort of an inflection point that we’re starting to see with a lot of these generative AI technologies, where … we don’t really know what the potential downsides are.“
For a 2021 study in the journal Information Systems Research, Schanke and colleagues explored how chatbot humanization impacted a customer’s likelihood of accepting an offer. They partnered with a secondhand clothing retailer to automate their clothing buyback process.
Schanke designed a chatbot for the company with varying degrees of human-like qualities.
