Consumer cognitions for AI-synthesized voices

• Main Authors: CHANG, Hannah H., MUKHERJEE, Anirban.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: artificial intelligence; machine-synthesized voices; consumers; cognitions; information processing; Artificial Intelligence and Robotics; Marketing
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7427
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Artificial intelligence technology seeks to emulate humans. One aspect is AI-synthesized voices. With the proliferation of text-to-speech AI technology, it is increasingly common to find AIbased, machine-synthesized voice narration in a variety of consumer contexts. These contexts range from artificially intelligent voice assistants (such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google Assistant), voice-based chatbots, to digital contents using assistive technologies (such as voiceover narration in product videos or news websites offering the option “listen to this article”). For example, there are more than 3.25 billion voice assistants in 2022; a number that is expected to touch about 8 billion by 2023 (Statista 2022). As such technology emerged recently, consumer research has just begun to examine the impact of AI-synthesized voices on consumer information processing and decision making. In this research, we examine how consumers respond to AI voice narration in media-rich environment, such as product videos, which have become prevalent and important in consumer decision making. In this research, we posit that the use of more narrating AI voices should prompt consumers to process the overall spoken message in a more cognitively effortful manner compared to the use of a single AI voice in persuasive videos. Indirect support comes from neuroscience and memory studies, which found that hearing more voices activates more brain regions (e.g., von Kriegstein et al. 2003).