Purpose

Artificial intelligence (AI)-based chatbots have brought unprecedented business potential. This study aims to explore consumers' trust and response to a text-based chatbot in e-commerce, involving the moderating effects of task complexity and chatbot identity disclosure.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey method with 299 useable responses was conducted in this research. This study adopted the ordinary least squares regression to test the hypotheses.

Findings

First, the consumers' perception of both the empathy and friendliness of the chatbot positively impacts their trust in it. Second, task complexity negatively moderates the relationship between friendliness and consumers' trust. Third, disclosure of the text-based chatbot negatively moderates the relationship between empathy and consumers' trust, while it positively moderates the relationship between friendliness and consumers' trust. Fourth, consumers' trust in the chatbot increases their reliance on the chatbot and decreases their resistance to the chatbot in future interactions.

Research limitations/implications

Adopting the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework, this study provides important insights on consumers' perception and response to the text-based chatbot. The findings of this research also make suggestions that can increase consumers' positive responses to text-based chatbots.

Originality/value

Extant studies have investigated the effects of automated bots' attributes on consumers' perceptions. However, the boundary conditions of these effects are largely ignored. This research is one of the first attempts to provide a deep understanding of consumers' responses to a chatbot.

中文翻译：

---

探索消费者对电子商务中基于文本的聊天机器人的反应：任务复杂性和聊天机器人披露的调节作用

目的

基于人工智能 (AI) 的聊天机器人带来了前所未有的商业潜力。本研究旨在探讨消费者对电子商务中基于文本的聊天机器人的信任和反应，涉及任务复杂性和聊天机器人身份披露的调节作用。

设计/方法/方法

在这项研究中进行了一种具有 299 个可用响应的调查方法。本研究采用普通最小二乘回归来检验假设。

发现

首先，消费者对聊天机器人的同理心和友好性的看法会积极影响他们对它的信任。其次，任务复杂性对友好度和消费者信任度之间的关系有负向调节作用。第三，基于文本的聊天机器人的披露负向调节同理心和消费者信任之间的关系，而正向调节友好性和消费者信任之间的关系。第四，消费者对聊天机器人的信任增加了他们对聊天机器人的依赖，减少了他们在未来互动中对聊天机器人的抵制。

研究限制/影响

本研究采用刺激-有机体-反应 (SOR) 框架，为消费者对基于文本的聊天机器人的感知和反应提供了重要见解。这项研究的结果还提出了一些建议，可以增加消费者对基于文本的聊天机器人的积极反应。

原创性/价值

现有的研究调查了自动化机器人的属性对消费者感知的影响。然而，这些效应的边界条件在很大程度上被忽略了。这项研究是深入了解消费者对聊天机器人的反应的首次尝试之一。