Heer Paleja

The use of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled virtual assistants integrated into daily life is seeing considerable growth, with over four billion AI-enabled virtual assistant devises already in use and are set to cross eight billion units by 2024.  Moreover, voice-commerce sales are on the rise with estimated sales of forty billion US dollars towards the end of 2022 made with AI-enabled voice-based virtual assistants. Despite this, the current academic literature illustrates that usage of AI-powered technologies is limited to simple tasks like search, setting alarms, reporting weather, and playing music. Academic research is yet to explore factors that influence behavioural intentions with reference to delegation of tasks requiring decision-making when AI-powered technologies are involved. In general, two distinct streams of study have been identified that examine consumer-AI interactions, first, how consumers engage with technology in terms of adoption and continued usage, and second on how mediators of perceived consumer risk inhibit usage.

With the use of AI-powered virtual personal assistants like Alexa, my research aims to understand how consumer-AI interactions occur in the context of autonomous decision-making and the influence of consumer attitudes of autonomy and wellbeing on consumer choice. This research intends to demonstrate the moderating role of differing levels of consumer involvement, as well as consumer personality attributes, on consumers’ readiness to delegate decisions to AI-enabled virtual assistants.