International Postdoctoral Fellowship (GFF-IPF)

Based on recent technological advancements in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is predicted that Smart Personal Assistants (SPAs) such as Amazon`s Alexa, Google`s Google Assistant, and Apple`s Siri will run on 870 million devices by 2022. This significantly increases the exposure of many to this technology in both B2B and B2C settings, especially when taking the ubiquitous chatbots into account. These Information Systems (IS) provide assistance by engaging with users especially via natural language and have been promised to fundamentally change the ways how we perform tasks, consume services and products, and interact with our environment. However, SPAs face problems in terms of user acceptance and affordance actualization. SPAs represent a novel class of IS that are characterized by high degrees of interaction and intelligence. These capabilities may fundamentally affect how people interact with SPAs as for instance users perceive them as increasingly human and, at the same time, less predictable. Thus, we need to generate insights on how to actualize the affordances offered by SPAs and realize their potential to avoid disuse that would lead to unrealized potential due to the rejection of SPAs. In specific, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the affordances that SPAs provide and how they may contribute to the actual outcomes of SPAs.
Based on these gaps in research, the aim of this project is to reveal which affordances contribute to SPA outcomes and how we leverage affordance actualization. In particular, a configurational, as well as a dynamic approach, is needed for understanding better, how this novel class of AI-based systems is appropriated as a technology-in-use. Therefore, I am providing a conceptual approach for studying SPA affordances, empirical insights on how SPA affordances actualization contributes to SPA outcomes and how companies can manage successful affordance actualization.
To achieve these goals, the proposed Basic Research Fund project first aims to shed light on which affordances are actually offered by this novel class of AI-based systems. For the affordance identification, I intend to review an interdisciplinary body of knowledge to provide a better theoretical understanding concerning the affordances offered and how they relate to the material properties of SPAs. In addition, a series of focus groups are conducted to complement this theoretical perspective with a practical view. On this basis, the project aims to provide a configurational and dynamic account for SPA affordances and their relationship to SPA outcomes. For this purpose, a series of empirical studies are conducted. First, a condition-oriented study aiming to provide empirical insights on relevant SPA affordance configurations to achieve SPA outcomes such as satisfaction and effective use. Second, a case-oriented diary study is conducted to provide insights about the dynamics of SPA affordance configurations and their patterns over time. These empirical insights finally enable to organize affordance actualization of SPAs and to contribute to a successful SPA implementation. Taken together, this project contributes to the body of knowledge by developing a conceptual approach for studying SPA affordances and generating insights on SPA affordance configurations and dynamics of affordances over time. Moreover, the project contributes to theory and practice by providing design principles for SPAs that will be used.