Businesses need to understand how AI makes their customers feel

By Gizem Yalcin and Stefano Puntoni

Now that people are starting to interact frequently and meaningfully with AI and automated technologies, both at and outside work, it’s time to focus on the emotions those technologies evoke. That subject is psychological terra incognita, and exploring it will be critical for businesses, because it affects a wide range of success factors, including sales, customer loyalty, word-of-mouth referrals, employee satisfaction, and work performance.

We have been studying people’s reactions to autonomous technology and the psychological barriers to adopting it for more than seven years. In this article, drawing on recent research from our lab and reviewing real-life examples, we look at the psychological effects we’ve observed in three areas that have important ramifications for managerial decision-making: services and business-process design, product design, and communication.