What is it about?
Recently, firms started to gamify conversational artificial intelligence (AI) agents, such as chatbots, to improve purchase outcomes. This article explores strategies for incorporating gamification into AI systems by investigating the impact of utilitarian and hedonic motivations facilitated by gamified chatbots on various dimensions of customer engagement (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral), as well as the subsequent effects of these dimensions on customers' purchase behavior. By conducting one cross-sectional and two experimental studies involving real interactions with gamified chatbots, this research identifies two crucial paths that warrant attention: an optimal path from hedonic motivation to behavioral engagement, resulting in enhanced purchase, and a detrimental path from utilitarian motivation to emotional engagement, which reduces purchase. Furthermore, the research compares the effects of two types of gamified chatbots and reveals that a game-of-chance-based chatbot, as opposed to a knowledge-sharing gamified chatbot, aligns with the optimal path, leading to higher purchasing while at the same time avoiding that customers feel obligated to play the game. Based on these findings, the article provides actionable insights for eliciting favorable psychological and behavioral responses through gamified AI interactions.
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Why is it important?
Firms are increasingly integrating gamification into AI interactions, enabling users to earn rewards or discounts through gaming mechanisms. For instance, AliExpress, under the Alibaba Group, lets shoppers gamble for discount-earning digital coins during conversational agent interactions. We show which kind of gamified chatbots are most effective for boosting customer engagement and sales.
Perspectives
Game elements involving chance, like spin-the-wheel, effectively stimulate hedonic motivation and behavioral engagement, leading to increased purchases. Chatbots focused on knowledge-sharing elements can intensify emotional engagement, being a benefit in itself and potentially substituting purchase and consumption experiences. Businesses should consider these factors when designing gamified chatbots.
Dr Maik Hammerschmidt
Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: How gamifying AI shapes customer motivation, engagement, and purchase behavior, Psychology and Marketing, October 2023, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/mar.21912.
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