A recent survey by McKinsey shows that 50% of respondents have adopted artificial intelligence (AI) in their business, with 22% reporting that over 5% of their earnings can already be attributed to AI. Furthermore, global consultancy Deloitte argues that social robots that integrate AI are also on the rise, as they provide the AI with a “body” that can foster tangible service interactions. Despite the potential advantages of technologies such as AI and social robots, their integration into the business is not without challenges. Therefore, stakeholders are keen to understand how to integrate social robots and AI successfully.
Three factors should be considered to facilitate a successful integration of social robots and AI in the marketplace:
Key factor 1: Gradual integration
First, managing change is challenging for both businesses and individuals. Even if the end result is positive in terms of the obtained benefits, humans are often reluctant to change their habits. Similarly, the integration of AI and social robots in the workplace, or during a service encounter, requires the user to adapt to a new scenario. For instance, in the past, many financial services were provided by humans. However, more recently, service interactions have increasingly become automated. In order to make this change less disruptive, gradual integration is key. To make the integration more gradual, rather than being forced, users should have options during a transition phase. These options could be based on the traditional service model, where the service is provided by a fellow human, and perhaps enhanced with some AI. Alternatively, users that are more technology savvy, could opt to use the fully automated version using AI or robots. Moreover, incentive schemes for early adopters of these technologies could accelerate integration and acceptance.
Besides reducing potential reluctance by users, a gradual integration may also lead to a more “error free” functioning of these technologies. Feedback gathered from early adopters of these technologies may enable companies to fix computational bugs that can lead to malfunctioning and reduced user acceptance. Consequently, if these technologies operate more efficiently and error-free in terms of addressing user’s needs, the likelihood of acceptance increases.
Key factor 2: Perceived added value
Second, perceived value is integral to most consumer transactions. In this context, we need to ask ourselves what added value social robots and AI can provide. Although scholars have identified a variety of value dimensions, broadly speaking, perceived value can be categorized from a utilitarian and hedonic perspective. Utilitarian value is based on a user’s perceptions such as added efficiency, ease of use, time and cost savings. Conversely, hedonic value is associated with the pleasure and enjoyment derived from an experience. To date, the majority of these technologies are integrated to add utilitarian value. For example, AI enabled chatbots are supposed to lead to faster response times compared to humans, in particular when dealing with standard processes and questions. Nevertheless, in recent years, social robots and AI have increasingly been positioned as technologies that can also provide hedonic value to their users. For instance, various hotels (e.g. Alibaba’s FlyZoo Hotel, Henna Hotels) are using social robots to greet customers and for various service tasks. Indeed, there may be utilitarian motives associated with these tasks, but customers are also visiting these hotels to draw some pleasure from experiencing service interactions with novel technologies.
The goal should not be to replace human staff
As outlined in the impact paper I wrote as part of ESCP Business School’s post-Covid series, key to a successful integration of these technologies is that companies keep in mind the specific tasks performed by social robots and AI. Scholars argue that depending on the intelligence required to perform the task, AI and robots are able to perform tasks independently, in collaboration with humans, or in some cases humans are still an absolute necessity. Therefore, users need to understand very clearly how these technologies add value to the process and/or service interactions, be they utilitarian or hedonic. The goal should not be to replace human staff. Rather, these technologies and humans should collaborate to improve the overall experience; so that humans are freed up for activities at which they’re better, thus assuring that the end user receives the added value.
Key factor 3: Ethical treatment
Last, but certainly not least, ethical treatment should come into play as an overarching umbrella during the integration process of these technologies. An integration of social robots and AI that can affect people´s well-being negatively – be it physiologically, psychologically, or even financially – would not be ethical. Hence, ethics need to be considered at all stages of this process. The regulation of robotics and AI to protect the safety, rights and freedoms of persons is a hot topic these days and governmental bodies are proposing regulation. Further, ethics are complex and different cultural viewpoints need to be taken into account, as I elaborate in a recent article. This is an integral part of protecting consumers’ rights across the globe.
Finally, while these three factors may not cover the full complexity of successful integration of AI and social robots, they can be used as an initial framework that supports this challenging process.
License and Republishing
The Choice - Republishing rules
We publish under a Creative Commons license with the following characteristics Attribution/Sharealike.
- You may not make any changes to the articles published on our site, except for dates, locations (according to the news, if necessary), and your editorial policy. The content must be reproduced and represented by the licensee as published by The Choice, without any cuts, additions, insertions, reductions, alterations or any other modifications.If changes are planned in the text, they must be made in agreement with the author before publication.
- Please make sure to cite the authors of the articles, ideally at the beginning of your republication.
- It is mandatory to cite The Choice and include a link to its homepage or the URL of thearticle. Insertion of The Choice’s logo is highly recommended.
- The sale of our articles in a separate way, in their entirety or in extracts, is not allowed , but you can publish them on pages including advertisements.
- Please request permission before republishing any of the images or pictures contained in our articles. Some of them are not available for republishing without authorization and payment. Please check the terms available in the image caption. However, it is possible to remove images or pictures used by The Choice or replace them with your own.
- Systematic and/or complete republication of the articles and content available on The Choice is prohibited.
- Republishing The Choice articles on a site whose access is entirely available by payment or by subscription is prohibited.
- For websites where access to digital content is restricted by a paywall, republication of The Choice articles, in their entirety, must be on the open access portion of those sites.
- The Choice reserves the right to enter into separate written agreements for the republication of its articles, under the non-exclusive Creative Commons licenses and with the permission of the authors. Please contact The Choice if you are interested at contact@the-choice.org.
Individual cases
Extracts: It is recommended that after republishing the first few lines or a paragraph of an article, you indicate "The entire article is available on ESCP’s media, The Choice" with a link to the article.
Citations: Citations of articles written by authors from The Choice should include a link to the URL of the authors’ article.
Translations: Translations may be considered modifications under The Choice's Creative Commons license, therefore these are not permitted without the approval of the article's author.
Modifications: Modifications are not permitted under the Creative Commons license of The Choice. However, authors may be contacted for authorization, prior to any publication, where a modification is planned. Without express consent, The Choice is not bound by any changes made to its content when republished.
Authorized connections / copyright assignment forms: Their use is not necessary as long as the republishing rules of this article are respected.
Print: The Choice articles can be republished according to the rules mentioned above, without the need to include the view counter and links in a printed version.
If you choose this option, please send an image of the republished article to The Choice team so that the author can review it.
Podcasts and videos: Videos and podcasts whose copyrights belong to The Choice are also under a Creative Commons license. Therefore, the same republishing rules apply to them.
