Hey Alexa, Please Help Us Solve This Problem! How Interactions with Smart Personal Assistants Improve Group Performance

Despite a growing body of research about the design and use of Smart Personal Assistants, such as Google’s Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa, existing work has mainly focused on their use as task support for individual users in rather simple problem
scenarios. Little is known about their ability to improve collaboration among multiple users in more complex problem settings. Using a mixed-method approach, we investigate the value of Smart Personal Assistants as facilitators by directly comparing 40 groups of three who either interact with a Smart Personal Assistant or a scripted human facilitator in a complex problem-solving scenario. The results indicate that groups interacting with Smart Personal Assistant facilitators show significantly better task outcomes and higher degrees of collaboration quality. A conversation analysis approach further analyzes differences in human SPA communication. Our work contributes to computer-supported cooperative work research and emphasizes the value
of conversation analysis approaches in HCI research.