The role of user perceptions of intelligence, anthropomorphism, and self-extension on continuance of use of personal intelligent agents

ABSTRACT

Personal Intelligent Agents (PIAs), such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, are different from traditional information systems. They possess unique design features and are increasingly available through various technological devices. Due to PIAs’ relative novelty, little is known about the determinants of their continued use. An investigation into PIAs’ characteristics and their impact on users’ post-adoption evaluations is expected to have theoretical and practical implications for PIA design and sustained usage. Our research model integrates perceptions of intelligence, anthropomorphism, and self-extension into the unified model of information technology continuance. Our findings show the key role of perceived intelligence of the PIA on continuance intention and indicate that hedonic perceptions of the agent become less important during post-adoption. Our results also highlight the role of perceived ownership and personalisation as antecedents of perceived self-extension.

KEYWORDS:

• Intelligent agents
• conversational intelligent agents
• personal intelligent agents
• continued use
• perceived intelligence
• perceived anthropomorphism
• self-extension
• The unified model of IT continuance
• mastery
• personalization
• ownership

Acknowledgments

Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).