AI algorithms are increasingly integrated into service and customer support, and research has started exploring consumer reaction to the way AI assistants converse. By contrast, the current research investigates what language consumers use when interacting with AI assistants, and the possible consequences of the widely used approach of training AI assistants to mimic consumers’ language.
We suggest that AI assistants are seen as outgroup members, which leads consumers to use what we term as ‘outgroup language’. We develop an automatic measure of outgroup language and demonstrate that consumers use more outgroup language with AI assistants than with human agents, and that since AI assistants are trained to mimic human language, they also use outgroup language in interactions with consumers; We then explore how this process influences consumer experience.
We apply a multi-method empirical investigation, including a survey, a natural quasi-experiment, and controlled lab and online experiments that involve hypothetical and real-conversational AI assistants. Our findings challenge the practice of training AI assistants to imitate consumer language. We discuss practical suggestions to address this issue and theoretical considerations about the language of AI assistants.
Ann Kronrod is an Associate Professor of Marketing at University of Massachusetts, Lowell. She is most well-known for her extensive background in linguistics. She often employs her expertise in linguistics in the research of User-Generated Content, Social Networks, Pro-Social Marketing and Word of Mouth. By collaborating with researchers from computational linguistics and text analysis, she discovers what's lying under the words. For example, together with her colleagues, Ann developed an algorithm to detect fake reviews by the language they use. Ann earned her Ph.D. in the Cognitive Science of Language from Tel Aviv University, and later completed her education as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Marketing at Sloan School of Management, MIT.
She has published in top journals like the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Marketing. She is a permanent member of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Consumer Research, and currently she is the Editor of the Issue on Language and Linguistics in Marketing at the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (JACR).
The seminar will be held in English.
Major information: Leonardo Corbo (leonardo.corbo@unibo.it).