AI vs. Human Voices: How Delivery Source and Narrative Format Influence the Effectiveness of Persuasion Messages

Abstract

AI communicators (e.g., AI voice assistants) play an increasingly important role in how individuals receive information, and, sometimes, calling for a more comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of messages communicated through human and non-human sources. Through a web-based experiment (N = 228), we tested how the persuasive effects of messages are influenced by their format (narrative vs. non-narrative) and the communicator (human voice vs. AI voice) in the scenario of debunking myths about COVID-19 vaccination. The findings revealed that the human communicator was perceived to be more credible and had more influence on participants’ attitude than the AI communicator. Further, the human communicator was particularly persuasive than the AI communicator in delivering a narrative persuasive message, but the effect was not mediated by perceived communicator credibility. The findings augment the literature on narrative persuasion by comparing human and non-human communicators as the delivery source. It also reveals the importance of considering non-human information communicators in research on narrative persuasive messages.

Keywords:

• Health news
• AI voice
• human voice
• narrative message
• vaccination

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by CityU Faculty Research Fund [grant number 7200638] and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRF-2021S1A5C2A02088387].

Notes on contributors

Yue Dai

Yue Dai is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on mediated impression formation, social influence, misinformation correction, intergroup contact, prejudice reduction, and risk perception in digital contexts.

Jiyoung Lee

Jiyoung Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Sungkyunkwan University. Her research focuses on the intersection of emerging media effects (AI/MR), affective computing, and health/risk misinformation.

Ji Won Kim

Ji Won Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include interactive media effects, media effects on health and risk behaviors, and misinformation.