How social cues in virtual assistants influence concerns and persuasion: The role of voice and a human name

The aim of this study was to test how two important types of social cues used by virtual assistants today can affect consumer concerns and persuasion. These two cues are modality (voice-based via smart speaker, voice-based via a smartphone, or text-based on a smartphone screen) and the adoption of a human name rather than no name. An online scenario-based experiment (n = 180) has shown that participants who were exposed to a voice-based recommendation via a smart speaker were the most concerned about security and found text-based recommendations on a screen to be the most persuasive. Participants who were exposed to a virtual assistant with a human name were less concerned about their autonomy and were more strongly persuaded than those exposed to an assistant without a human name.