Salesperson and consumers VS artificial intelligence? Investigating preventing and promoting factors of new forms of collaboration in physical retail settings

Artificial intelligence has a major impact on physical retail settings(De Gauquier et al., 2023 ; Grewal et al., 2023 ; Noble et al., 2022). In fact, AI is changing the way retailers interact with their customers in-store, making interactions changing, since they no longer rely solely on human interactions (customer/salesperson) but also on non-human actants (Larivière et al., 2017). AI is a machine that mimic human intelligence and the neural connections in human brain (Pantano et Scarpi, 2022 ; Syam et Sharma, 2018), and can manifest in various forms, ranging from robots to online conversational agents providing assistance or advice, to the self-service applications or kiosks offered by retailers for delivering personalized offers to customers (Guha et al., 2021). In-store interaction takes several forms since customers can interact with a human salesperson, with technology based on artificial intelligence or in others cases, with salesperson using AI when interacting with a customer. In this last case, many studies emphasize the growing importance of understanding how artificial intelligence can enhance salespersons during interactions with customers (Breugelmans et al., 2023 ; Grewal et al., 2023 ; Pappas et al., 2023 ; Guha et al., 2021 ; Huang et Rust, 2021). The aim is to offer a more enriching customer experience by combining the capacity of AI to improve service consistency and operational efficiency and the capacity of human salesperson to improve customer relations (Liu-Thompkins, Okazaki et Li, 2022 ; Pappas et al., 2023). To do this, a number of authors call for taking into account both the perspective of the salespersons and the customers (Grewal et al., 2023 ; Shankar et al., 2021). The objective of this study is to explore how both customers and salespersons perceive the use of AI in physical retail environments. The regulatory focus theory (Higgins, Shah, and Friedman, 1997) provides the framework to understand that individuals act from two distinct motivational angles: a promotion orientation and a prevention orientation (Higgins et al., 2001). On the customers' side, expectations can be understood by considering that they may perceive a salesperson using AI in two ways: either by adopting an approach strategy (promotion) or by adopting an avoidance strategy (prevention).