The Intelligent Friend - The newsletter about the AI-humans relationships, based only on scientific papers.
Hello to all dear readers! This week I wrote my first ‘guest’ article, and several people signed up for this newsletter. Thank you and welcome! Next week, finally, I will announce definitive things about the new issue format, Augmentation. I'm working on it in all my free time to make it really engaging. Stay tuned!
Intro
ChatGPT-4o has undoubtedly highlighted the importance of the 'human' or 'relational' side of AI. Aspects to which, literally, this newsletter is dedicated. We talked about the possible 'love' for Alexa or friendship with a Replika avatar. Today we will try to answer a really intriguing question: is it possible to think that a virtual assistant is... cool? Let's find out.
The paper in a nutshell
Title: I am attracted to my Cool Smart Assistant! Analyzing Attachment-Aversion in AI-Human Relationships. Authors: Guerreiro & Loureiro. Year: 2023. Journal: Journal of Business Research. Link.
Main result: emotional connections between IVAs and users generate a fascination in humans, leading them to view IVAs as cool. Affective, behavioral, and intellectual interactions with Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) positively influence the perception of their coolness.
Starting from attachment-aversion (A-A) theory, scholars investigate how the experience with AI-enabled voice assistants influences the perceived coolness of IVAs and customer-brand relationships.
A cool assistant
Think about a time you used Alexa. For example, to plan your day or remind you of a task. At that precise moment, how did you feel? Presumably you were busy or had your hands full writing it down somewhere, or you were working on the computer and you preferred to let Alexa take care of it so you wouldn't forget the task. But what did you feel in that precise moment? It is very likely that you will have been satisfied and pleased.
This may have continued many times over time, until you thought that your assistant was useful, was efficient and was...cool. As surprising as it may be, coolness is a very important characteristic for the so-called Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs)1, the category into which Alexa falls. This is not only for the use of Alexa itself, but also because, often, virtual assistants are just "sons" of a larger brand, which also feeds on daily interactions with these assistants.
It could be Amazon for Alexa, Google for Google Home, but even brands like Walmart have, for example, developed a specific assistant to use on Google Home2. Interactions with Alexa and similar can lead to the relationship with the brand being perceived as ‘cool’. This, as you can imagine, has huge implications for the relationship with the companies and products we purchase. Several studies have confirmed that, for example, consumers have expressed feelings of coolness in their relationship with robots3.
But let's stop for a moment. What do we actually mean when we say something is 'cool'? The concept of coolness has been explored especially in relation to brands. In a 2019 paper, Warren, Batra, Loureiro & Bagozzi4 conducted 9 quantitative and 3 qualitative studies to arrive at common characteristics of brands that can boast of this characteristic.
Coolness (and this definition applies to today's paper) is "a state that conveys an energetic, extraordinary, aesthetically appealing, high status, original, authentic, rebellious, subcultural, iconic, and popular relationship with a brand".
It all starts from our interactions with the virtual assistant. The way you interact and use Alexa will naturally lead you to develop a different relationship with it. However, strong ties, as specified by the authors, "are only possible when the IVA develops a unique identity and personality"5. This is a fundamental topic. Both for the technological object itself and for the brand that uses it for interactions.
And although today we don't think about different tones of voice because there aren't many virtual assistants other than Alexa and Google, making an effort, it doesn't seem so difficult to imagine that several brands will develop their own agent to be incorporated into Alexa or other devices. Maybe, if it's Chanel or Gucci it will be more elegant and refined, and if it's Netflix it will embody a nice character. What is certain is that the issue of the coolness of the brand and the agent is also relevant from a consumer point of view. This is also confirmed by several studies6789.
Given the constant evolutions of relationships between virtual assistants and consumers, scholars suggest that IVAs can be perceived as cool as they evolve from a servant (slave) type of relationship to a more partner type of engagement with consumers.
That said, we understood that brands and virtual assistants can both be cool, and that in this study we focus on the coolness of IVAs. And we also tried to give a definition. However, at the beginning we referred to the experiences we have day to day with Alexa. It was not a coincidence.
The role of experiences
First of all, we need to start from the fact that through experiences, the user forms varying levels of emotional bonds with the AI agent, facilitating higher or lower interactive experiences10. Consequently, when a brand is involved (for instance, Amazon) AI agents embody the brand and communicate its characteristics to the consumer.
Therefore, the authors make a delicate and important step, not talking about brand experience, but focusing on IVA experience (just as, instead of talking about brand coolness, we are talking about and focusing on the coolness of the virtual assistant). The authors categorize the relevant experiences into four fundamental typologies:
affective: associated with the emotions the consumer feels while interacting with the IVA;
behavioral: related to actions performed using the IVA;
intellectual: the extent to which the VAT can spark consumer curiosity and encourage problem-solving;
sensory: aspect of an experience encompasses aesthetics and sensory qualities (e.g., touch, smell, tone of voice, visual appeal)11.
Their hypothesis is very clear and direct: the experiences we have with the AI assistant positively influence the way we perceive it as cool.
In summary, until now: we have seen what we are talking about when it comes to coolness referring to an intelligent virtual assistant (so when we talk about AI-driven assistants). We have seen that this coolness plays an important role in influencing relationships with brands. We understood that experiences influence the coolness of the technological tool, and we have indicated the four categories of experiences that according to scholars have a positive effect on this characteristic.
However, something is still missing, right? How do you put the pieces together between the agent's coolness, experiences and brand? How do we analyze the actual effect on brand relationships when a virtual assistant is involved? This is where the fundamental paradigm on which the study is based comes to our aid: the Attachment-Aversion (A-A) theory.
The Attachment-Aversion (A-A) theory
Now, to introduce the theory, think of an example. It's your son graduation day. You and the family are all ready for the graduation, excited by cheering for him. At the moment before delivery, you notice that your phone is out of battery. Panic! You won't be able to photograph that unique moment in your child's life. You won't be able to relive it on the evening of the party or in the future, when he may have left for another important part of his professional future. Then you remember, however, that you brought with you a portable charger from a fun and attractive brand, which we will call "Memoir2" (completely invented). You can charge your phone, take photos and make videos.
You come back home. Days later, a friend asks you for advice on a portable charger to buy. Which one do you think you will recommend to him?
The experiences we have with brands are not only important for our rational judgments, but because they influence the way in which we are attached, as in this case, or averse to that particular brand and product. Our experiences and these feelings lead us to want to continue, enhance or even interrupt the relationship with the brand. This is essentially what the Attachment-Aversion (A-A) theory states: consumers' motivation to adopt, maintain, or deepen a relationship with a brand is influenced by their experiences with it and the level of attachment or aversion they develop.
As I have often said, my university background is economics and marketing, and I find the topic of attachment and aversion to brands absolutely fascinating. And you will find it intriguing especially if, like me, you are always curious to dig into theories: these concepts derive from theories of psychology, such as attachment theory which sees its origins in the study of the bonds between father or mother and child12.
Well, research has shown that just as with places or objects13, we can build an emotional attachment towards brands14. Since virtual assistants like Alexa possess anthropomorphic traits similar to brands, one could derive (as scholars do) that emotional attachment can also occur in consumer-IVA relationships.
One last important thing to underline is that A-A theory suggests that brand experiences lead to attachment-aversion dynamics, influenced by:
brand-self distance: how close or distant the consumer feels from an IVA;
brand prominence: how naturally and automatically thinks about the IVA arise.
These attachment-aversion relationships impact motivational strength, driving the consumer's desire to adopt the IVA, maintain the relationship over time, and enhance it in the future.
As you may have guessed, what was done in the study was to transfer many concepts relating to brands (coolness, attachment, experiences) to IVAs, while maintaining their crucial characteristics for studying the effects when the protagonists are not the products and organizations but precisely, AI-driven assistants.
This is a reason that makes the study even more engaging for me and that pushes us to ask ourselves, with a certain curiosity: what did the scholars find?
Relationships and coolness
The authors recruited a total of 389 respondents who owned an IVA. The study focused on participants who could provide real experiences with IVAs (and now we have understood why). I would to underline that the final dataset included 52.6% of participants who owned an Amazon Alexa, and 47.4% who owned a Google Home. Additionally, the sample was stratified by past experience with IVAs, with 42.5% having used their devices for up to 6 months and 57.5% for more than 6 months.
The results demonstrated that affective, behavioral, and intellectual experiences with IVAs positively influence their perceived coolness, with affective experience having the most significant impact.
However, sensorial experience does not significantly impact IVA coolness within the first six months. The study indicates that the sensorial aspects of IVAs, such as those in Alexa and Google Home, only enhance perceived coolness when users have a prolonged relationship with the device. After more than six months, consumers begin to view the sensorial stimuli as cool.
IVA coolness strongly influences attachment-aversion (A-A) relationships. The ‘cool factor’ acts as a catalyst, accelerating the attraction process between the IVA and the consumer.
Finally, A-A relationships positively affect motivational strength (approach-maintenance-enhancement), indicating that these relationships also enhance the long-term desire to continue engaging with the IVA.
Take-aways
The coolness of Alexa. Virtual agents like Alexa can be considered 'cool' just like brands.
It's all about the experiences. Affective experiences with Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) positively influence their perceived coolness. Emotional ties, such as feelings of friendship and love, create a fascination that leads users to view IVAs as cool.
The IVA and the brand. The coolness of IVAs strengthens relationships with brands, boosting brand prominence and reducing perceived distance between the consumer and the brand. This coolness factor also positively influences users' long-term motivation to maintain and enhance their relationship with the IVA.
Further research directions
Future research can explore if more advanced types of IVAs produce the same effects on IVA coolness and A-A relationships.
Conducting a longitudinal study analyzing how IVA coolness is affected by the relationship with IVAs over time and how those dynamic effects affect A-A relationships could extend the knowledge of how consumers interact with AI-enabled IVAs.
Investigating how IVAs evolve from niche cool (innovative and rebellious) to mass cool can be an intriguing area for future research.
Thank you for reading this issue of The Intelligent Friend and/or for subscribing. The relationships between humans and AI are a crucial topic and I am glad to be able to talk about it having you as a reader.
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