This summary is provided by the IPR Digital Media Research Center.

Researchers examined how how consumers and other audiences respond to both AI and human agents in live chats online with organizations.

Two studies were conducted with sample sizes of 172 and 375 respectively where participants identified whether they were chatting with a human or machine from company websites. A second study was A literature review was also conducted.

Key findings include:
1.) Over a third of participants incorrectly reported the artificial agent with whom they communicated was a human or that a human agent was a machine.
2.) When participants perceived the chat agents as machines, they were less likely to trust the chat agent.
— When participants perceived the chat agents as humans, they associated it with higher levels of trust in an organization through perceived investment.
3.) The findings of this study showed the importance of human-like qualities in online agents for organizations to build trust with consumers.

Find the original journal article here.

Heidy Modarelli handles Growth & Marketing for IPR. She has previously written for Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, The Next Web, and VentureBeat.
Follow on Twitter