Pairing up with anthropomorphized artificial agents: Leveraging employee creativity in service encounters
研究发现，将拟人化的人工智能体与有创造力的员工配对，能通过特质转移效应提升顾客对服务团队的评价，对服务管理和AI应用有参考价值。
Abstract Even as artificial agents (AAs) become more prevalent in service encounters, customers continue to express generally unfavorable views of their creativity, which can lead to negative service evaluations. Drawing on anthropomorphism and group stereotyping literature, the authors propose a trait transference effect from human employees to AAs in dyadic service teams. The results of five studies confirm that an anthropomorphized (vs. nonanthropomorphized) AA paired with a creative employee boosts service evaluations, both attitudinal and behavioral. Anthropomorphism induces greater perceived entitativity of the AA–employee dyad, prompting customers to transfer the creativity exhibited by the employee to the AA and perceive the AA as more creative. This transference effect is attenuated when the temporal stability of the dyad is low, customers’ lay beliefs about group entitativity are challenged, or customers have utilitarian consumption goals. These results contribute novel insights about AAs in service teams, with compelling practical implications.