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AI as customer

Ming-Hui Huang (Department of Information Management, College of Management, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan)
Roland T. Rust (Department of Marketing, Robert H Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA)

Journal of Service Management

ISSN: 1757-5818

Article publication date: 24 January 2022

Issue publication date: 28 February 2022

2111

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to note that customers are not necessarily human and to figure out how best to serve artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The authors also propose several major research streams, as examples, to help launch research on AI customers and how to serve them.

Design/methodology/approach

The current paper is a conceptual one that draws upon research from many areas to support the ideas proposed.

Findings

AI customer are proliferating. AI as customers can augment or replace human customers and can be the customer itself. Service providers may also be AI, which means that both humans serving AI customers and AI serving AI customers are relevant here. The authors show that even truly autonomous AI customers are likely to be more common in the future. The authors conclude that reverse engineering will probably not be successful in understanding AI customers and that an approach similar to how we research human consumer behavior is likely to be more useful.

Originality/value

Virtually, the entire literature on customers and how to serve them assumes that customers are human. With the rapid advancement of AI, purchase decisions are increasingly made by AI, suggesting that it is now important and necessary to consider the possibility of AI customers and how best to serve them. This paper opens the door for such research.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Both authors contributed equally to the article. This research was supported by the following grants 107-2410-H-002-115-MY3gs1, 110-2410-H-002-101-MY3gs1 and 110-2918-I-002-002 from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland, USA.

Citation

Huang, M.-H. and Rust, R.T. (2022), "AI as customer", Journal of Service Management, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 210-220. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-11-2021-0425

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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