IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04108783.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Voice app (Google Actions and Alexa Skills) : the influence of the assistant's voice on users

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolas Kusz

    (UP1 EMS - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - École de Management de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, PRISM Sorbonne - Pôle de recherche interdisciplinaire en sciences du management - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

  • Jean-François Lemoine

    (ESSCA Research Lab - ESSCA - Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales d'Angers, PRISM Sorbonne - Pôle de recherche interdisciplinaire en sciences du management - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, UP1 EMS - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - École de Management de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Abstract

Voice-activated virtual assistants (Google, Alexa, etc.) are becoming more and more a part of people's daily lives. Although their usefulness and functionalities are increasing, the voice interface between man and machine has not been sufficiently taken into account by companies that have developed their voice application (i.e. Alexa Skills or Google Actions) yet: the synthetic voice applied to the technology. Our research aims to measure the impact of the assistant's voice on consumers reactions. Based on 15 interviews of users, the results reveal that the type of voice of the assistant influences trust in the assistant and social presence. However, in contrast to studies conducted on virtual agents and chatbots, our research indicates that realism influences trust; a synthetic voice that sounds exactly like a human degrades the perception of the voice assistant.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Kusz & Jean-François Lemoine, 2023. "Voice app (Google Actions and Alexa Skills) : the influence of the assistant's voice on users," Post-Print hal-04108783, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04108783
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://paris1.hal.science/hal-04108783
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://paris1.hal.science/hal-04108783/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McLean, Graeme & Osei-Frimpong, Kofi & Barhorst, Jennifer, 2021. "Alexa, do voice assistants influence consumer brand engagement? – Examining the role of AI powered voice assistants in influencing consumer brand engagement," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 312-328.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yoganathan, Vignesh & Osburg, Victoria-Sophie, 2024. "The mind in the machine: Estimating mind perception's effect on user satisfaction with voice-based conversational agents," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    2. Mariani, Marcello M. & Hashemi, Novin & Wirtz, Jochen, 2023. "Artificial intelligence empowered conversational agents: A systematic literature review and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    3. Mari, Alex & Mandelli, Andreina & Algesheimer, René, 2024. "Empathic voice assistants: Enhancing consumer responses in voice commerce," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    4. Zhang, Yaqiong & Wang, Shifu, 2023. "The influence of anthropomorphic appearance of artificial intelligence products on consumer behavior and brand evaluation under different product types," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Alex Mari & Andreina Mandelli & René Algesheimer, 2023. "Shopping with Voice Assistants: How Empathy Affects Individual and Family Decision-Making Outcomes," Working Papers 399, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    6. Rahman, Muhammad Sabbir & Bag, Surajit & Hossain, Md Afnan & Abdel Fattah, Fadi Abdel Muniem & Gani, Mohammad Osman & Rana, Nripendra P., 2023. "The new wave of AI-powered luxury brands online shopping experience: The role of digital multisensory cues and customers’ engagement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    7. Bosse, Douglas & Thompson, Steven & Ekman, Peter, 2023. "In consilium apparatus: Artificial intelligence, stakeholder reciprocity, and firm performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(PA).
    8. Maroufkhani, Parisa & Asadi, Shahla & Ghobakhloo, Morteza & Jannesari, Milad T. & Ismail, Wan Khairuzaman Wan, 2022. "How do interactive voice assistants build brands' loyalty?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    9. Abhijit Guha & Timna Bressgott & Dhruv Grewal & Dominik Mahr & Martin Wetzels & Elisa Schweiger, 2023. "How artificiality and intelligence affect voice assistant evaluations," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 843-866, July.
    10. Guo, Wenshan & Luo, Qiangqiang, 2023. "Investigating the impact of intelligent personal assistants on the purchase intentions of Generation Z consumers: The moderating role of brand credibility," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. Maria Vernuccio & Michela Patrizi & Maja Šerić & Alberto Pastore, 2023. "The perceptual antecedents of brand anthropomorphism in the name-brand voice assistant context," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 30(4), pages 302-317, July.
    12. Badghish, Saeed & Shaik, Aqueeb Sohail & Sahore, Nidhi & Srivastava, Shalini & Masood, Ayesha, 2024. "Can transactional use of AI-controlled voice assistants for service delivery pickup pace in the near future? A social learning theory (SLT) perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    13. Xie, Yuguang & Liang, Changyong & Zhou, Peiyu & Jiang, Li, 2024. "Exploring the influence mechanism of chatbot-expressed humor on service satisfaction in online customer service," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    14. Beeler, Lisa & Zablah, Alex R. & Rapp, Adam, 2022. "Ability is in the eye of the beholder: How context and individual factors shape consumer perceptions of digital assistant ability," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 33-46.
    15. Kang, Weiyao & Shao, Bingjia, 2023. "The impact of voice assistants’ intelligent attributes on consumer well-being: Findings from PLS-SEM and fsQCA," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    16. Thapa, Sajani & Guzmán, Francisco & Paswan, Audhesh, 2024. "We are just 10 feet away! How does location-based advertising affect consumer-brand engagement?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    17. Guerreiro, João & Loureiro, Sandra Maria Correia, 2023. "I am attracted to my Cool Smart Assistant! Analyzing Attachment-Aversion in AI-Human Relationships," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    18. Fuyong Lu & Xintao Wang & Siheng Li & Qun Zhao, 2023. "How Mobile Health Livingstreaming Engages the Consumer-Insights from a Dual-Process Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-22, May.
    19. Kautish, Pradeep & Purohit, Sonal & Filieri, Raffaele & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2023. "Examining the role of consumer motivations to use voice assistants for fashion shopping: The mediating role of awe experience and eWOM," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    20. Jorge Andrés-Sánchez & Jaume Gené-Albesa, 2024. "Not with the bot! The relevance of trust to explain the acceptance of chatbots by insurance customers," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    voice assistant; trust; social presence; HMI;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04108783. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.