Anthropomorphism of service-oriented AI and customers’ propensity for value co-creation
Marketing Intelligence & Planning
ISSN: 0263-4503
Article publication date: 9 July 2024
Issue publication date: 17 January 2025
Abstract
Purpose
Artificial intelligence (AI) used in service has sparked fundamental changes in how enterprises engage their customers. AI specifically designed for customer service is denoted as service-oriented AI. Through the lens of social information processing theory and the pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) emotional state model, this study aims to examine the underlying mechanisms for service-oriented AI anthropomorphism to influence customers' propensity for value co-creation.
Design/methodology/approach
Our data were collected from hotel customers who had experienced interactions with service-oriented AI. Through purposive sampling, 350 survey responses were collected. We analyzed the survey data using covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM).
Findings
This study has two key findings. Firstly, customers' propensity for value co-creation is favorably facilitated by the anthropomorphism of service-oriented AI. Secondly, the anthropomorphism of service-oriented AI can strengthen customers' perceptions of cuteness and service capacity, elicit a sense of novelty, and enhance customers' propensity to collaborate with service-oriented AI to create value. These findings address the research gaps by focusing on customer engagement through service-oriented AI and provide a theoretical basis for subsequent practical endeavors in the field.
Originality/value
Integrating the PAD emotional state model with the social information processing theory, this study explores the effects of service-oriented AI's anthropomorphism on customers' propensity for value co-creation.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The project was supported by the Jiangsu Provincial Social Science Foundation of China (21GLC026) and Jiangsu Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center of World Water Valley and Water Ecological Civilization.
Citation
Tian, M., Yan, J. and Li, X. (2025), "Anthropomorphism of service-oriented AI and customers’ propensity for value co-creation", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 50-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-08-2023-0388
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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